We've slipped on down to the third ring of Cocytus--where we find a few textual problems, more New Testament references, the return of Virgil for no good reason, and a possible slip from our poet. Hey, it's slick down here!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we near the end of INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, passing on from Count Ugolino (sort of--one last glance) and toward the last speaking damned soul in all of INFERNO.

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

[01:27] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, lines 91 - 117. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, just scroll down this page, please.

[03:37] One last glance at Count Ugolino and his sons: a question about Dante's own rage in exile away from his own children.

[07:36] The return to the journey, here to a landscape with the damned as the only "geographical" markers.

[10:07] A translation problem about how the damned are actually facing in this third ring of the ninth circle, Cocytus.

[12:56] Why's in your eye? A reference to the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 7:3.

[15:07] Yet another New Testament reference--perhaps to Acts 2:3--but a deeper problem of exactly what the pilgrim Dante knows (and whether the poet Dante has made a gaffe).

[18:13] The medieval understanding of how wind happens.

[19:32] The return of Virgil--to tell you we don't need Virgil!

[21:35] The last of the damned who speaks in hell--and here, asks for help.

[25:19] The damned soul asks for a kindness from a traveler on the road.

[27:17] Dante makes a coy or arch or false promise. So is he becoming more like God?

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXXIII, Lines 91 – 117

We hiked farther on, out to the part of the ice sheet

That so crudely enwraps another group of people.

These faces weren’t turned down but craned up at us.

 

Down there, their tears prevent their tears.

Their sorrow, which gets blocked up over their eyes,

Is then backed up inwardly to make their affliction worse.

 

The first tears become a frozen knot,

Which then, like a crystal visor,

Fills up the cup under their brow with more tears.

 

At this point, although my face, like a callous,

Had gone numb from the bitter cold

And had no more feeling in it,

 

It seemed as if I felt some definite wind.

So I: “My master, who makes this wind move?

Has not every bit of vapor been laid to rest down here?”

 

And he to me: “You’ll soon get to the spot

Where your own eyes will give you the answer

For the source of these gusts.”

 

That’s when one of the damned in the icy crust

Cried out to us, “O cruel souls,

So totally cruel that you are damned to the last stop on this road,

 

“Lift these hard veils from my eyesight,

So I can vent a little of the pain that seizes my heart,

Just a bit, before my tears freeze solid again.”

 

And so I to him: “If you want me to help you,

Tell me who you are. If I don’t ease your distress,

May I be sent down to the bottom of this glacier.”