Virgil and Dante the pilgrim have been warned by some menacing centaurs. Stay where you are!

They don’t. They walk right up to them—until Virgil is about navel level with one of the horse-man beasts. And the centaurs appear a tad changed. Nicer. More noble. Even chivalrous. Especially since they let the pilgrim climb up on one to ride him across the boiling river of blood.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through this passage that has lots of those great knots we love in COMEDY: problems with corporeality in the afterlife, questions of tone (tongue in cheek, perhaps?), and questions (of course!) about Virgil’s character.

It’s a wild passage that’s too often overlooked by critics. Far more may well be going on here than meets the eye.

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XII, lines 76 - 102:

As we got closer to these fast beasts,

Chiron took hold of an arrow and with its notch

Pulled his beard back at his jawline.

 

When he had uncovered his jumbo mouth,

He said to his fellow soldiers, “Have you paid attention to the fact

That the one who comes behind moves whatever he touches?

 

That’s not what usually happens with the feet of the dead.”

And my good leader who was by this point right at Chiron’s chest,

Where the two natures are married,

 

Replied, “You bet he’s alive, and thus on his own,

So I must show him this dim valley.

Necessity pressures us, not pleasure.

 

Somebody who stepped away from singing alleluia

Commissioned me with this new-fangled duty.

He’s not a robber, nor am I the spirit of a thief.

 

But by that power through which I am directed

In my steps down this savage road,

Give us one of your guys, to whom we’re a charge,

 

And who can show us the place for crossing,

And transport us over on his back,

Since this one is no spirit who walks through the air.”

 

Chiron turned to the right side of his chest

And said to Nessus, “Return and guide them.

If you encounter another regiment, make them yield to you.”

 

At that point, we moved on with our trusty escort

Along the edge of the simmering vermilion

Where the ones who were boiled gave out ringing shrieks.