We've come to the final pouch (or "malebolge") in the giant circle of fraud, Dante's largest piece of real estate in all of COMEDY. This pit is also one of the more disgusting spots in hell: a medical ward, full of contagion, the nightmare of the Middle Ages.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear from the first of many of the damned in this pit--and as we watch Dante the pilgrim hold onto his humanity, even in the face of the very diseases that could kill him.

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

[01:31] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 73 - 108. If you'd like to read along or leave a comment about this episode, just scroll down this page.

[04:25] There are echoes and contrasts in this passage to previous bits in Canto XXIX and even before.

[08:55] These opening images are not pastoral. Rather, they're up-market images. I don't mention it in the episode, but they tie directly to Virgil's reference to "chain mail" in the passage.

[13:03] There are two narratives (or stories) in COMEDY: the narrative of the journey and the narrative of the fiction.

[16:06] What diseases do these guys have? Leprosy? Scabies? Rabies? And why does it matter?

[22:00] Dante's genius is on full display in the character of Virgil: a fallible, changeable, but still great poet.

[24:39] How do you avoid losing your humanity in hell?

[28:53] How do you hold onto your humanity when you write about the terrible truths of the human condition?

[33:12] Rereading INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 73 - 108.

And here is my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXIX, Lines 73 – 108

 

I saw a pair propped up against each other

Like a pan against a pan propped up to dry.

Both of them were pocked with scabs from head to foot.

 

I’ve never seen a stable-boy who’s kept his master waiting,

Or who wants to get off to bed,

Work his curry-comb so fast

 

As each of these plied the teeth

Of his nails on himself to get rid of the rabid itch,

Which has no other method for relief.

 

Their fingernails ripped off the scabs

The way a knife can clean the scales off a sea bream

Or off other fish with even larger scales.

 

“You there, ripping at your chain-mail coat,”

Began my master to one of them,

“And sometimes even making pincers out of your fingers,

 

“Tell us if there are any Italians

Among those gathered here so that your nails

May prove an eternal tool for this sort of work.”

 

“We’re both Italians, whom you see ruined

Like this,” one replied in tears.

“But who are you to ask anything about us?”

 

My guide answered, “I am the one who descends

With this living man from rim to rim.

And I intend to show him hell.”

 

At that, they stopped propping each other up,

And each one, all atwitter, turned to me,

Along with the other guys who’d overheard him as if only an echo.

 

My good master sidled up close against me

And said, “Say to them anything you want.”

And so I began, since he’d wished me to:

 

“In order that the memory of you cannot be stolen

From the minds of men up in the primary world,

But can go on living under many a sun,

 

“Tell what you are and who your people are.

Your horrid and nauseating pain

Shouldn’t make you afraid to reveal yourselves to me.”