INFERNO, Episode 209. The Zombie Apocalypse: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, Lines 118 - 157

We've come to the last sinner who speaks in INFERNO. And his story is as wild as it gets. He claims that once someone violates the guest/host relationship, their soul exits their body and falls into the ice sheet at the center of the earth. Their body is then made into a puppet for a demon.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through the third ring of Cocytus, Ptolomea, out on the ice sheet of the ninth circle of Dante's INFERNO. It's one last imaginative blast before the final revelation of INFERNO.

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

[01:50] My English translation of this passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, lines 118 - 157. If you'd like to read along, print it off, make notes, or drop comments, please scroll down this page.

[05:37] Brother Alberigo clearly wants to be known.

[07:02] Who is Brother Alberigo as a historical figure?

[09:52] Why is Brother Alberigo here when he's still alive?

[11:09] What's the deal with the dates and figs?

[12:09] Who is Branca Doria?

[14:26] Branca Doria actually outlived the poet Dante!

[15:34] The artistic problem with so much emphasis on the historical identities of the characters in COMEDY.

[18:06] What does "Ptolomea" mean, this third ring of Cocytus, the ninth circle of hell?

[20:52] Theology in the passage: first (strangely) a reference to Atropos.

[21:50] Theology in the passage: the guest/host relationship.

[26:30] Theology in the passage: zombies!

[28:58] The condemnation of Genoa as the last of a list of condemnations of central Italian city-states.

[33:32] What is justice in this passage?

[36:11] I don't need Saint Dante. I need a great poet.

[38:27] Rereading the entire journey across Ptolomea: INFERNO, Canto XXXIII, lines 91 - 157.

And here’s my translation of Inferno, Canto XXXIII, Lines 118 – 157

So he replied, “I am Brother Alberigo,

The one who gleaned the fruit from the garden of evil.

Here I get reimbursed, a date for each fig.”

“Hey,” I said to him, “are you already dead?”

And he to me: “As to what’s going on with my body

In the world above, I have no idea.

“This circle called Ptolomea has the advantage

That often enough, a soul falls into its depths

Before Atropos has pushed it off.

“And so that you might be more willing to shave off

The tears frozen on my face,

Know this: The moment a soul has done the sort of treachery

“I did, its body comes under the full control

Of a demon, who can move it this way and that

Until the fullness of its time comes around.

“The soul then falls into this septic tank.

It could be that the body of the soul wintering here

Behind me still moves around up there.

“You probably know him, even if you’ve just gotten down here.

He’s Mr. Branca Doria. Many years have elapsed

Since he got locked in down here.”

“I believe,” I said to him, “that you’re lying to me.

There’s no way Branca Doria is dead yet.

He eats and drinks and sleeps and wear clothes.”

“In the ditch above,” he said, “the one with the Malebranche,

Where the pitch is boiling hot,

Michael Zanche had not yet gotten there,

“When this one left a demon in place

In his own body, as did one of his kinsman

Who helped him him with his treachery.

“Now stretch out your hand this way

And open my eyes.” I didn’t do it,

For courtesy to him would be villainy anywhere else.

Ah you Genoese men, so removed

From any decency, so full of every corruption,

Why have you not been driven off the face of the earth?

With a sinful spirit from Romagna,

I found one of your own,

Taking a bath in Cocytus,

While on earth he seemed to be still alive.