INFERNO, Episode 164. Beware Of Classical Figures, Modern Politicians, And Maybe Poets: Inferno, Canto XXVII, Lines 1- 30
Ulysses leaves and a second flame shows up in the eight of the malebolge, the evil pouches of fraud in Dante's INFERNO. Ulysses may be the great tragic figure, but this one is muttering and sputtering. He’s a whining politician (and a local Romagna warlord).
In other words, we're leaving epic and moving to comedy--as always with Dante.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's incomparable COMEDY. We're down in lower hell, toward the bottom of the eighth (or next-to-the-last) circle of hell. And we're about to meet someone right out of Dante's own world.
Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:32] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XXVII, lines 1 - 30. If you'd like to follow along, you can find my translation and even drop a comment just down this page.
[04:40] Two clues about how to judge Ulysses: the upright flame and the "sweet poet" who is Virgil.
[08:00] The introduction of a comic figure: Guido da Montefeltro.
[12:09] The historical background of the simile about the Sicilian bull.
[14:58] Possible interpretations for the simile of the Sicilian bull: infernal speech or meta-poetics?
[19:05] The fabulous explanation for how a flame can speak.
[21:24] The open acknowledgment that Virgil is speaking in the Lombard dialect.
[25:38] Language cues in Guido's first speech.
[28:55] Back to the local after the global--as always with Dante.
And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXVII, Lines 1 – 30
At this point, the flame straightened up and turned quiet,
Intent on speaking no more. It then moved away from us
With the go-ahead from my sweet poet—
Just as another one, who came up right behind,
Made our sight fasten onto its tip
Because of the garbled noise that could be heard from it.
As the Sicilian bull (whose first bellows
Came from the cries of the guy who made it—and it served him right—
The one whose file had molded its form),
[As it] used to bellow with the voice of the tormented
So that, although it was made of brass,
It seemed impaled in pain,
So having no escape or outlet
From its origins in the fire, the agonizing words
Were converted into their own language.
But once those sounds had made it up
To the flame’s tip, giving it the same flutterings
That had come from the tongue that had been their passage,
We heard it say: “Hey, you, to whom I direct
My voice, and who just now spoke Lombard,
When you said, ‘Be on your way now; I’m not holding you anymore,’
“Although I may have gotten here a bit late,
May it not irritate you to stop and talk to me.
You see that I’m not irritated—and I’m the one burning up!
“If only just now into this blind world
You fell from up in the sweet land
Of Italy, from the place where I packed up all my guilt,
“Tell me if Romagna has peace or war.
You see, I came from the mountains between Urbino
And the ridge from which the Tiber springs.”