INFERNO, Episode 35. O, Fortuna: Inferno, Canto VII, Lines 67 - 96

After he has seen the clerics in the fourth circle of hell, Dante wants to know why some have so much while others have so little. How come scarcity rules this earth?

Enter Boethius!

Or Boethius in Virgil’s mouth. Virgil offers a sermon on the goddess Fortune.

This passage is always read as boiler-plate medieval thought. But I think it’s much more than that. I think Dante-the-poet is up to more than just rehearsing what he’s read. He’s a better poet than that. And he’s left some interpretive hints in this passage that it may not be all it seems at first blush.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take this slow stroll with Dante-the-pilgrim across the known universe (and across COMEDY, the poet’s great work).

If you were in a Dante seminar, this passage would be glossed as a simple statement about how scarcity operates in this world. I don’t think it’s simple at all!

If you click on the “notes” section of the podcast player, you can see the segments of this episode. And drop a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

Here’s my English translation of just lines 67 - 96 in Canto VII of INFERNO—although in the episode, I go back and read the entire canto again to give you a running start into what I think is a much stranger passage than it seems at first glance.

“My master,” I said, “now tell me further:

This Fortune that you just touched on for me?

What is she, with the world’s beneficence clutched in her arms?”

And he to me: “O crazy creatures,

How great is the ignorance that makes you stumble!

I wish you would quaff my judgment.

“That one whose wisdom transcends everything

Created the heavens and gave them their guides

So that each part would shine in another part,

“Distributing all the light equally.

In just such a way, when it comes to the world’s splendors,

He ordained a general minister and leader

“To temporarily circulate all the world’s empty beneficence,

From people to people, and from one race to another,

Beyond the interference of any human might,

“So that one people rules and another withers away,

All in accord with the judgment of this one,

Who is hidden like a snake in the grass.

“Your knowledge is no match for hers:

She foresees, judges, and pursues

Her reign as the other gods do theirs.

“There’s no truce in her transformations:

Necessity forces her to be fast,

So pressing are those who come forward to have a turn.

“She’s the one who is always put on a cross

By those who should instead give her praise;

They blame her unjustly and speak ill of her.

“But blessed is she—she doesn’t hear a thing:

She is happy with the other original creatures—

She rotates her sphere and is lifted up in bliss.”