Without a doubt, Canto XIII is one of the most brilliant, elliptical, complex, and ironic cantos in the canticle of pain, INFERNO.

There’s so much going on in the second ring of the seventh circle of hell (that is, the ring of those violent against themselves in the larger circle of the violent) that I want to take a moment and give you three background passages that will deepen your understanding of this tour de force from Dante.

I thought about introducing these passages as we discuss the canto, but I decided it was much better if you experienced Canto XIII armed with the classical learning from which Dante draws his poetry.

In this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE, there’s no passage from COMEDY. Rather, I want to read and discuss three “background” passages: one from Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES, book IX, the story of Dyope and her bad fate with a lotus flower; and two from Book III of Virgil’s AENEID, about the initial events Aeneas experiences as he escapes from Troy’s collapse, particularly his first attempt to build an altar and start building a home and then his encounter with the hideous Harpies who offer a grim prophecy about his future.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look in depth at these three passages so you’ll be ready to experience Canto XIII of INFERNO in all its brilliance in the next episode of this podcast.