Our nameless grifter has proposed a game for the demons: Let's see how many more of my damned ilk I can call out of the boiling pitch for you to torment. The demons back off, he gets ready, and he leaps away to his safety. The demons then go nuts, while Dante, our pilgrim, and Virgil, his guide, sneak away.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this dramatic passage at the end of Inferno Canto XXII and as we move on into Canto XXIII.

We are still among the barrators, the political grifters, those on the take with their hands out for bribes. But nothing's as it seems in Dante's COMEDY. This passage of INFERNO is full of inversions, including perhaps the greatest inversion of them all: a meta-literary inversion as Canto XXII flips all of COMEDY on its head.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:40] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XXII, Line 118 through Canto XXIII, Line 3. If you'd like to read along, just scroll down this page.

[04:46] The many inversions inside this passage.

[15:54] The dominant imagery in this passage--and the way imagery degrades and then is regenerated over the course of COMEDY.

[22:29] The passage starts out with an address to the reader: You're going to hear a new game. But what game?

[27:41] Dante and Virgil escape--under a full tonal shift in the passage.

And here is my translation of Inferno, Canto XXII, Line 118 – XXIII, Line 3

 Hey, you readers, you’re about to hear a whole new game!

Each of the demons turned his sights on the bank’s other side,

With the devil out in front who had been most opposed.

 

The Navarrese timed out everything really well.

He planted his feet firmly on the ground and in a flash

Took the dive and got himself out of their designs.

 

At that, each demon felt the pangs of guilt,

Most of all the one who’d caused the blunder!

He flew up and cried, “Caught in the act!”

 

But little good it did him. His wings couldn’t overtake

The guy’s sheer terror. That sinner went under

And the demon soared chest up in mid-flight,

 

Like when a puddle duck dives for the bottom

The moment a falcon gets close. The bird of prey

Then swerves up again, all tormented and whipped.

 

Frost-trampler was so angry for being made into a fool

That he went flying behind him, hoping

The sinner would escape just so he could pick a fight.

 

When the barrator had dropped from sight,

Frost-trampler aimed his talons at Harlequin

And put a wrestling-hold on him above the ditch.

 

But Harlequin had been well and fully fledged.

He clawed back pretty good until

They both tumbled down into the boiling muck.

 

The heat immediately made them let go of each other!

But because their wings were enlimed,

There was no way for them to rise.

 

Curly-Beard, who was crying foul as much as the others,

Made four of the crew fly over to the opposite bank

Each armed with one of their grappling hooks—and soon enough

 

They came down to their positions,

Stretching their hooks out to the stuck demons,

Who were pretty well cooked to a crisp crust.

And so we left them, messing around in that ditch.

 

[Canto XXIII]

 

Hushed up, by ourselves, without companions,

We walked on, one in front, the other behind,

Like mendicant Franciscans going down a road.