INFERNO, Episode 64. The Centaurs--A Rider Without A Horse Or A Horse Without A Rider: Inferno, Canto XII, Lines 49 - 75
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil arrive at the shore of the boiling river of blood to be greeted, not by sinners, but by their tormentors: centaurs, who become the focus of much of this canto.
But the focus may not be all the Dante-the-poet wants it to be.
Every writer knows this: there’s a moment when your point and your story come into tension with each other. How can a writer solve this problem?
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through a deceptively easy but actually quite difficult passage of INFERNO in Canto XII. The introduction of the centaurs may well be the moment in which the narrative finally becomes as important as its thematics. And that’s a tough spot for a theological poem.
Here is my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XII, lines 49 - 75:
O blind cupidity and foolish rage
That so goad us in this short life
And then simmer us cruelly for eternity!
I saw a wide ditch curved into an arc
That seemed to encircle the whole plain,
Just as my guide had stated.
Between the foot of the cliff and this ditch,
Centaurs ran along in single file, armed with arrows,
Just as when they went out for a hunt in our world.
When they saw us coming down, they all stopped,
And three set out from the company
With bows and arrows chosen with great care.
One cried out from a ways off, “For what torment
Are you headed, you who descend this slope?
Tell me right where you are. If not, I’ll draw my bow.”
My master said, “We will make
A reply to Chiron when we get closer.
To your discredit, your will was always too hasty.”
Then he elbowed me and said, “That is Nessus,
Who died because of the beautiful Deianira,
And so made of himself his own vendetta.
“That one in the middle, who’s looking at this own chest,
Is the great Chiron, who nurtured Achilles.
The other is Pholus, who was always full of rage.
“Around this ditch they go, thousands upon thousands of them,
Shooting any spirit who pulls itself up
Out of the blood more than its guilt permits.”