INFERNO, Episode 180. Laughter Is The Best Medicine, Even In Hell: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, Lines 109 - 123

The first falsifier in the tenth of the evil pouches of fraud (those famed "malebolge") steps up to tell his tale: a funny joke about grifting, the stupidity of his mark, and the unexpected whims of damnation in Dante's INFERNO.

Dante is clearly having a good time. And we should, too. Because one of the ways you save your humanity, even in hell, is to laugh at human foibles.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for an explication of this short passage toward the end of canto XXIX in INFERNO. We've got a storyteller on hand. And he wants to tell us his tale.

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

[01:23] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXIX, lines 109 - 123. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment, just scroll down this page.

[02:56] The first falsifier gives the details of this life but not his name. In fact, he speaks about himself using Dante the poet's favorite technique: periphrasis.

[04:33] Should we trust the commentary tradition on the identity of this character?

[11:01] Why must we historically identify every figure in COMEDY?

[12:53] The rage for (interpretive) order may obscure the low humor of this passage.

[14:41] Your actions in "real" life may not determine your place in the afterlife.

[16:54] Why is alchemy such a great sin in the Middle Ages?

[20:37] Poetry is alchemy--and so this pit is the climax of the narrative of the fiction in the eighth circle of fraud.

[24:41] How do you keep your humanity in hell? You laugh!

And here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto XXIX, Lines 109 – 123

“I was from Arezzo,” answered one of them,

“And Albero of Siena made me get put to the fire.

But the reason I died didn’t push me down here.

“Sure enough, I did say to him as a joke,

‘I know how to rise up and fly through the air.’

That one, he had the will but not much smarts,

“And the dupe wanted me to show him the art of flight. But only

Because I couldn’t turn him into Daedalus, he had me

Set on fire by one who loved him as a son.

“But into this last pouch of ten,

For the alchemy that I practiced in the world,

I was damned by Minos, who cannot make a mistake.”

And I said to the poet, “Was there ever

A people so vain as the Sienese?

Certainly not even the French by a long shot!”