INFERNO, Episode 55. The Dazzle of Beatrice, The Stench Of Hell: Inferno, Canto X, Line 121b, through Canto XI, Line 15

Dante leaves Farinata—but hesitantly. It’s almost as if he has to force himself away from the heretic.

And then Virgil makes our pilgrim a promise. A woman with beautiful eyes will one day explain your life to you. Too bad this promise is never fulfilled in COMEDY!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk to the edge of the abyss and get a whiff of lower hell—or perhaps “tartarus,” the place the poet Vergil and his hero Aeneas could never go, the place Dante the poet sets in hits poetic vision.

This is a packed passage, full of popes and bishops, Beatrice and the abyss, Dante’s will and Virgil’s promise. It shows us just how gorgeous and crafted Canto X really is. And gives us a glimpse of what’s ahead in Canto XI as we rest under the lid of a pope’s tomb.

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto X, line 121b, through Canto XI, line 15:

                        I willed my steps

Over to the ancient poet, rehashing

Those words that had seemed to be filled with harm for me—

At which he started out, and then as we were going along,

He said to me, “Why are so lost?”

And I gave him the full satisfaction of what he’d asked.

“May your memory preserve what you’ve heard

Against you,” the wise one implored,

“And listen to have I’ve got to say.” Then he raised his finger.

“When you will finally be in front of the sweet dazzle

Of the woman whose beautiful eyes see everything,

You will fully comprehend the journey of your life.”

With that he footed off to the left.

We left the wall and hiked toward the middle

On a path that led straight down into a valley

Whose stench turned our stomachs even up there.

----- [canto XI]

As we got to the edge of a high embankment

That had been made by a circle of broken rocks,

We looked down on an even crueler mob scene.

Here, because of the horrible stench

Of putrification that was belched up from the deep abyss,

We pulled back a bit and took cover under the lid

Of a monumental tomb, on which I saw some writing

That said, “I hold onto Pope Anastasius,

The one who Photinus seduced from the straight way.”

“Our descent has to be postponed a bit,

So that our senses get used to the foul smell—

Only then we can forget about it a bit.”

So spoke my master. And I said to him, “Find a compensation,

So that the time won’t be lost.”

And he: “You see that I am already thinking about it.”