Our pilgrim walks back from the usurers, sitting out on the edge of the seventh circle of INFERNO, and finds that he must climb aboard the awful beast of fraud.

But there's so much more to this passage. It reveals our poet as a creator of modern narrative. And it shows us that he's taking full control of his poem. Virgil, be gone! Brunetto, too! This is Dante's work.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:12] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XVII, Lines 79 - 99. You can read along with this translation just below.

[03:06] More about "back ends." And a forecast: the way down will involve the beasts of hell from now on out.

[05:38] Dante is afraid--but he was just so brave. What's up with the changed emotions?

[08:27] The pilgrim's internal motivations are always the final stop in the narrative technique--just one of the ways our poet Dante is so modern.

[10:03] On touching the beasts of hell!

[10:47] Why is the pilgrim so silent in Canto XVII of INFERNO?

[12:43] More about the corporeality of the afterlife.

[14:31] Virgil is both a representative of a class and himself. He's Virgil in his Virgilness. Another way that our poet anticipates the problems of modern narrative.

[19:01] Finally, the beast is named! Geryon! Except that only makes things more confusing.

Here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XVII, Lines 79 – 99

 I found my leader already astride

The back end of that wild animal,

And he said to me, “Now be strong and fearless!

 

“From this point on, we’ll go down stairs like these.

Climb aboard in front of me because I want to be in the middle

So that the tail can’t do you any harm.”

 

Like a guy who’s so close to a fit of shivering

From malaria that his fingernails have gone ashen,

So much so that he shakes all over as if he’s seen a ghost,

 

Just so I set to at my master’s words.

But shame goaded me on, as it does at the behest of a good lord

Who can make his servant brave.

 

I got myself seated on those ugly shoulder blades.

I so badly wanted to say, although my voice didn’t sound

Like what I believed it would, Make sure you hold onto me!

 

But it was so anyway. Because the one who’d supported me

Through other tribulations grabbed me with his arms

And held me steady after I’d made my mount.

 

Then he said, “Now get going, Geryon!

Make your circles wide and your descent slow.

Have a care for this new ballast that you’ve got.”