INFERNO, Episode 6. Virgil To The Rescue: Inferno, Canto I, Lines 67 - 96

Virgil materializes to rescue Dante the pilgrim from his fall back into the dark woods.

Dante is saved by none other than the great Roman poet Virgil, the author of THE AENEID.

Dante’s walk almost ended as it got underway, but it had to be redirected by, well, classical poetry—and by a classical poet.

Virgil arrives on the scene, not as a pure allegory of human reason, but as himself, with all his Virgil-ness. What if Virgil is a human—damned, yes, but still a human, fallible, a little insecure, a little preening, a great poet, and a bit of a windbag?

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

[01:12] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 67 - 96. If you’d like to read along or drop a comment, please scroll to the bottom of this page.

[03:45] Virgil! That apparition from the last episode is the great Roman poet. Fun fact for English speakers: When you talk about the character in Dante's poem, you spell his name "Virgil"; when you talk about the historical figure, you spell his name "Vergil."

[05:59] The first shot at a much longer discussion (in future episodes) of an important tool in Dante-the-poet's kit: periphrasis, a rhetorical strategy whereby a writer walks around something without ever naming it.

[07:58] Virgil offers Dante-the-pilgrim his résumé. It's not all it seems. Or perhaps it's less than he tries to make it.

[15:11] Virgil makes a big mistake, a theological mistake, which may tell us more about what Dante-the-poet thinks of Virgil than Virgil intends to give away at this moment.

[19:43] Even so, Dante-the-pilgrim offers Virgil a little hero-worship. Does this set up an implicit tension between the pilgrim and the poet in the poem? Maybe. I don't address that in this episode, but we'll need to face this important point in future episodes.

[21:07] A final bit about the internal landscape of this poem. There's a lot of talk about how medieval poetry shows no "interiority," no inner life of its characters. But there may be a clue in this passage that COMEDY is very interested in the pilgrim's internal landscape, his interiority.

Here’s my rough English translation that I used on this episode (INFERNO, Canto 1, Lines 67 - 96):

“Not a man,” he replied, “though I once was a man,

And my parents were Lombards,

Both with Mantua as their homeland.

“I was born sub Julio, although it was late,

And I lived in Rome under good Augustus

In the period of the false and lying gods.

I was a poet, and sang of that just

Son of Anchises who came from Troy

After proud Ilium was burned up.

“But you, why are you going back to all that sorrow?

Why aren’t you climbing this delightful mountain,

Which is the source and cause of every joy?”

“Wait, are you Virgil, the great fount

That opens out into a big expanse of language?”

I bowed my head in shame when I answered him.

“O glory and light of all the other poets,

Let my long studies and great love pay off,

All that I’ve done ever since I searched inside your volume.

“You are my master, you are my author.

I got the beautiful style from you

That has won me such honor.

“Look at the beast that made me turn back.

Save me from her, famous sage,

For she makes my veins and pulse quiver.”

“You must commit to another road,”

He answered when he saw me start to cry,

“If you want to get out of this savage place.

“The beast that makes you to wail

Doesn’t let anyone get by that way.

She will set upon you until she kills you.”