In this final passage in Limbo from Canto IV of INFERNO in THE DIVINE COMEDY, Dante-the-pilgrim lists off the great people he sees in the castle with its clear brook: Trojans, Romans, Julius Caesar, Aristotle, and even great pre-Socratic thinkers.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, on this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE as I explore the catalogue of the great in Limbo.

In fact, there are a few others Dante points out who are almost mind-blowing, figures I didn't see in his list even after reading The Divine Comedy for almost thirty years. But I see them now! And their appearance changes everything.

I mentioned in the episode that there were some philosophic figures you might want to explore more. Here are links to YouTube videos (all attached tio and clickable with these names, but no video mine). These will help you explore some of these figures in more depth:

Democritus

Anaxogoras

Thales

Dioscorides (this one is in Italian but it has great visuals of the manuscript tradition)

and Empedocles.

Here’s my English translation of the passage, Inferno, Canto IV: Lines 115 – 151.

 

Then we moved over to one side,

To an open spot that was well-lit and high up,

So we could see everyone.

 

There in plain sight on the enameled green

The spirits of the great were shown to me.

To have seen all of them still lifts up my spirit.

 

I saw Electra with a big company,

That included Hector and Aeneas,

And Caesar, in armor and with falcon eyes.

 

I saw Camilla and Penthesilea,

And on the other side King Latinus

Who sat with his daughter Lavinia.

 

I saw Brutus who drove out Tarquin,

Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia—

And over by himself I saw Saladin.

 

When I lifted my eyes yet higher,

I saw the master of those who know,

Seated with his philosophical family.

 

All look at him and do him honor.

There I saw Socrates and Plato

Closest to him and in front of everyone else—

 

Also, Democritus, who says the world happened by chance,

Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales;

Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Zeno.

 

And there I saw the great collector of things according to their qualities—

I mean, Dioscorides—and also Orpheus,

Cicero, Linus, Seneca the moralist,

 

Euclid the geometer and Ptolemy,

Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Galen,

Averroes, too, who made the great commentary.

 

I can’t possibly present all those there,

Because I’m pushed on by my long theme:

What I say doesn’t come close to what I want to say.

 

The company of six now dwindles to two,

And my wise guide leads me along another path

Out of the stillness and into the twitching air.

So that I come to a place where nothing is that shines.