INFERNO, Episode 154. The Shifty Thieves, The Certain Judgment, The Uncertain Poet: Inferno, Canto XXV, line 142 - Canto XXVI, Line 12

Dante the poet has finally wrapped up the pilgrim's time in the seventh of the evil pouches, the "malebolge" that make up the eighth circle of INFERNO, the great expanse of fraud. Our thieves have gone off stage and we're left with both an uncertain poet and a very certain prophet who sees Florence's destruction in the offing.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the final passage among the thieves, a passage that stretches over the canto break from INFERNO XXV to canto XXVI.

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

[01:36] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXV, Line 142 - Canto XXVI, Line 12. If you'd like to read along, just scroll down this page..

[03:51] The final revelation of the metamorphosizing thieves--which raises more questions than it answers.

[06:53] An overview of the identities of the six thieves we've met in the seventh of fraud's malebolge.

[09:35] Four (or five) reasons Dante the poet may have been so cagey about the identities of the five Florentine thieves.

[17:11] Dante the poet slips a confession about his own writing into the end of Canto XXV.

[19:15] The denunciation of Florence: the final metamorphosis of the pilgrim into the poet-prophet.

[20:44] The dream of Florence's destruction--and a question about what "Prato" means in the text.

[25:05] The final metamorphosis is sorrow.

[28:43} The opening of Canto XXV is actually setting us up for the arrival of one of the great sinners of hell just ahead of us.

And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXV, Line 142 – Canto XXVI, Line 12

In this way, I saw the seventh loaded shipment

Mutate and transform. The sheer novelty of it all

Lets me excuse my quill if it strays a bit out of bounds.

And although my eyes were confounded,

And my soul was distraught,

These sinners could not slip away quietly enough

That I didn’t clearly recognize Puccio Sciancato,

Who was the only one of the three companions

Who remained unchanged after they’d first arrived on the scene.

The other was the one whom you, Gaville, still lament.

-----

Take pride, Florence, that you’ve gotten so grandiose

That you beat your wings over sea and land.

Your name even spreads out across hell!

Among the thieves, I found five who were

Your citizens, a fact that brings me much shame.

It certainly doesn’t raise you to the heights of honor.

But if those dreams we have near dawn are true,

You’ll feel, in only a little more time,

The very things that Prato and others crave for you to feel.

If it all had already happened, it wouldn’t have been too soon.

And would that it had happened, because it must happen!
Even so it will weigh me more and more, the longer I live.