INFERNO, Episode 178. A Medieval Hospital Of Horrors: Inferno, Canto XXIX, Lines 37 - 72

The pilgrim Dante and his guide, Virgil, finally come to the last of the evil pouches of fraud (the famed "malebolge")--and wow, it's a doozy!

They walk above a medieval malarial ward, full of festering bodies, rank sickness, and disgusting smells. This pit may well be the foulest yet.

But if Dante and Virgil can walk it, so can we. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we begin to explore the farthest reaches of fraud in Dante's INFERNO.

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

[01:54] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 37 - 72. If you’d like to read along or drop a comment, just scroll down this page.

[05:14] The opening of this passage echoes the opening lines of INFERNO, Canto XXI.

[07:28] Potential callbacks to the ninth pit of fraud: cloisters, converts, and pity.

[11:12] The first simile of the passage: a malarial hospital.

[15:11] The walk continues with a familiar reference and an astounding shout-out to the "Lord on high."

[20:53] Is this shout-out an eruption of the poet in the pilgrim's journey?

[23:17] The second simile of the passage: a tale from Ovid's METAMORPHOSES.

[26:05] Comparing the two similes in INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 37 - 72.

[30:02] Our first real glimpse inside the pit.

[31:15] The journey continues--our comfort in the nightmare.

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXIX, Lines 37 – 72

So we kept on talking as far as the first spot

On the ridge that could show the next valley’s floor,

If enough light were to get down into it.

And when we were over the last cloister-like enclosure

Of these evil pouches and all its converts

Were apparent to our vision,

Weird laments pierced me

As if these arrows had iron tips made of pity.

I immediately covered my ears with my hands.

It was like all the suffering

From July through September in the hospitals of

Valdichiana, as well as Maremma and Sardinia,

Were gathered in one ditch.

Indeed, just like that. And such a stench hit us,

As if it came from a heap of putrefying body parts.

We came down to the last embankment

Of that long ridge, as usual sticking to the left—

And then my eyes could get a more life-like view

Down toward the bottom, where the ministress

of the Lord on high—that is, infallible justice—

Punishes all the falsifiers in her bureaucratic records here.

I don’t believe it could have been much sadder

To see the people of Aegina in the full grasp of the disease,

When the air was thick with so much contagion,

So that every animal, even the little worms,

Were all done in—at which point the ancient people

(or so the poets held for certain)

Were restored to life from the seed of ants.

It was just that bad in that dim valley

To see all the spirits languishing about like shocks of limp grain.

This one over that one’s stomach, this one over that one’s shoulders,

Another crawling on all fours, all in an attempt

To transpose themselves along that wretched path.

Step by step we went along without talking,

Watching and overhearing the invalids,

Who couldn’t even lift their bodies up.