Our pilgrim, Dante, and Virgil walk only a few steps from the gate of hell and come upon a scene that . . . well, is exactly the sort of scene you’d expect: torture, wasps, stings, chaos, blood, puss, maggots. It’s the hell we always thought we’d get! So why in the world are there thirty-one more cantos in INFERNO.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore these first steps into hell with the pilgrim and begin to realize that this poem is far more complex, far more structured, and maybe even more ironic than we’d ever imagined.

Here’s my English translation of Inferno Canto III: 22 – 69

 

Here sighs, cries, and high-pitched wailing

Resonated so loudly in the air without stars

That I began to weep.

 

Diverse languages, horrible accents,

Words of woe, cries of anger,

Voices shrill and throaty, and the sound of hands smacking

 

Swirled together in storm

Through the stinking, timeless air,

Like sand spins in a hurricane.

 

Misconceptions so shrouded my head

That I said, “Master, what do I hear?

And who are these people so conquered by pain?”

 

And he to me, “This is the miserable state

Of the sorrowful spirits who lived

By avoiding both disgrace and praise.

 

“Mingled among them is the bad band

Of angels who neither rebelled against God,

Nor were loyal to him, but were for themselves alone.

 

“Heaven rejects them to maintain its beauty,

And deep hell will not accept them

For fear that those down below might have have something to gloat about.”

 

And I: “Master, what so pains them

That it makes them lament so loudly?”

And his response: “I will be quite brief.

 

“Those here have no hope of death,

And their blind life is so low

That they are envious of every other state.

 

“The world above does not permit them to be known;

Mercy and justice disdain them.

Let’s not talk about them. Look and let’s go.”

 

So I looked again and saw a banner

Whirling around the perimeter so fast

That it didn’t seem able to come to rest.

 

A long train of people followed

Behind the banner, so many

That I had not thought death had undone so many.

 

Some of them I recognized;

I even picked out the shade of that coward

Who made the great refusal.

 

I instantly knew with full certainty

That these were the sorry lot who displeased

Both God and his enemies.

 

These wretches, who were never really alive,

Were naked and stung all over

By swarms of flies and wasps.

 

Their faces were streaked with blood,

Which mixed with their tears and streamed down

To be sopped up at their feet by disgusting worms.