We've come to the first subset of the last circle of INFERNO, the pit of hell, an ice sheet that starts with Caïna, which holds those who've offed family members, mostly for land or money. These guys are frozen solid to their necks, the heads bent down to let their tears spill onto the ice.

They're a nasty lot, although one of the damned can't help but speak up. He proves both a snitch and strangely reticent. A poor storyteller, really, who just wants to get back to his misery.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at a pack of traitors who've killed family members for land or money (or power) in this nightmarish sub-circle hell which is actually controlled by the shadow of another sinner, someone far above us in the circles of INFERNO.

Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

 

[01:40] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXII, lines 40 - 69. If you want to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please scroll down this page.

[04:26] Disorientation (and focus) as one of the thematics of the ninth circle of hell.

[08:49] A frozen, infernal parody of a brotherly kiss of affection (or maybe even the liturgical kiss of peace).

[13:42] Dante's strange (and perhaps unnecessary?) interest in the damned, expressed by their physicality.

[16:50] The question of how Dante the poet and/or the pilgrim is mirrored in these traitors.

[20:15] The last fifteen lines of this passage--first, a quick reading with the details filled in.

[23:34] Caïna: unpacking the name of the first subset of the ninth circle.

[25:47] Unpacking the many characters in this passage: Alessandro and Napoleone degli Alberti, Modred, Focaccia (or Vanni dei Cancellieri), Sassol Mascheroni, Camicione de' Pazzi, and Carlino de' Pazzi.

[35:01] Reasons for the (mostly) obsessive regionalism of this passage: the locale and time (mostly) in which Dante lived.

[40:33] Francesca's control of this passage from up in Canto V.

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXXII, Lines 40 – 69

For a moment I looked around on my own,

Then I glanced down at my feet and saw two so scrunched tight

That the hair on their heads was knotted together.

 

“Tell me, you guys whose chests are jammed together,”

I said, “who are you?” These two craned back their necks,

So that when they’d raised their gaze to me,

 

Their eyes, until now only moistened along the rims,

Oozed tears down to their lips

And froze there, locking their faces in an icy vice

 

More tightly than board with board has ever been held

In a clamp. They were then so overwhelmed with rage that they

Started knocking their foreheads together like two goats.

 

And another guy who’d lost both his ears

To the freezing cold, with his face still held down,

Said, “You think you can see yourself mirrored in us?

 

“If you want to know who these two are,

The valley from which the Bisenzio flows

Belonged to their father Alberto and to them.

 

“They came out of one body. You can look

All over Caïna and not find a shade

More worthy of being encased in this aspic.

 

“Not the one whose chest and shadow were run through

With one thrust from the hand of Arthur,

Nor Focaccia, nor this one here who shades me

 

“With his head and completely blocks my view.

His name was Sassol Mascheroni

If you’re a Tuscan, you know well enough who he was.

 

“And so that you won’t force me to bang on anymore,

Be apprised that I’m Camicione de’ Pazzi.

I’m waiting for Carlino to clear my name.”