The first falsifier steps up to tell his tale—a doozy of a joke about his grifting, his mark’s stupidity, and the whims of damnation in Dante’s INFERNO. It may have been about the grift, but he’s damned for alchemy—which is itself a lot like the poetry Dante writes.

Dante and Virgil question the first two of many of the damned in the final evil pouch (or “malebolge”) of fraud, here in the eighth circle of INFERNO. They’re in a medieval hospital ward of contagion and the primary question is “how do you hold onto your humanity even here?”

The final evil pouch (“malebolge”) of fraud in Dante’s INFERNO may be the most disgusting of them all: a medieval hospital ward stuffed with festering bodies. Contagion is a nightmare. Particularly when there’s no hope.

Dante and Virgil stick around the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebologe”) of fraud in INFERNO to find the first of Dante’s family in the afterlife: Geri del Bello, Dante’s father’s first cousin. They may also come to a tentative truce or even resolution for the vendetta thematics that have run under INFERNO all along.

Canto XXVIII and the evil pouch (or “malebolge”) of the schismatic fraudsters ends with a poet: Bertran de Born, who wrote the very troubadour poetry that was a forerunner of Dante’s early work. And the canto ends with a rationale for the punishments: “contrapasso.” But what punishments? Bertran’s? The schismatics” All of the damned? Or even more?

In the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud, we also meet Mosca dei Lamberti, who seems to want to confess his crimes—which were nothing less than the start of the horrific Florentine civil war and the epicenter of Dante the poet’s rage.

In the ninth of the evil pouches (the “malebolge”) of fraud, among all the other schismatics and scandalmongers, we meet Curio, who goaded Julius to cross the Rubicon and start the civil war that destroyed the Republic and founded the Empire. And we also see a node of Dante the poet’s inevitably ambivalence, a product of his idealism.

Muhammad has walked on but we’re not nearly done with the schismatics. Here comes a guy who’s so into talking, he pulls open his windpipe to get the job done. Problem is, much of what he tells Dante the pilgrim has been lost to us in the mists of history. Maybe that’s not a cause for worry. Maybe it’s a call to wonder.

After Muhammad’s appearance in Dante’s INFERNO, Virgil tells the Islamic prophet the purpose of the pilgrim’s journey—which is a new thematic for COMEDY and provokes the most shocking line in all of INFERNO.

We come to one of the most shocking, vulgar, and incendiary passages in all of INFERNO: Muhammad’s placement in the ninth of the evil pouches (the malebolge) that make up the circle of fraud. Why is Muhammad here? What’s the history of the West’s relationship with Islam? Why is Dante explicitly using an Arabic word in this passage?

As Dante and Virgil move toward the ninth evil pouch (or malebolge) of fraud in Inferno’s eighth circle, the poet Dante seems to begin to rethink the cost of empire. The wreckage of empire is the body in pain, even Muslim bodies. And the body in pain makes and unmakes language and the world it expresses.

Ulysses and Guido da Montefeltro: two of the most compelling and brilliant characters in Dante’s INFERNO. Since they’re down in the same pit (the eighth of the malebolge or evil pouches of fraud), here’s a comparison and contrast of these two overwhelming shades.

The demonic struggle for Guido da Montefeltro’s soul at his death. Saint Francis is bested by a demon. Does that seem right? And Minos makes another appearance in Dante’s INFERNO, despite having been forgotten among the barrators.

Guido da Montefeltro offers his (self-)justification for his life: a masterpiece in subterfuge and blame avoidance. He tells a tale of his own innocence from the eighth of the evil pouches (the malebolge) that make up the deep, eighth circle of fraud in Dante’s INFERNO.

An interview with J. Simon Harris on his new translation of INFERNO. And his own reading of Guido da Montefeltro’s self-serving and self-damning speech in INFERNO, Canto XXVII, lines 58 - 129.

The mercenary Guido da Montefeltro is more interested in the politics of his home region of Romagna than he is of the torments he’s enduring. Dante the pilgrim gives him an earful, guaranteed to irritate and flatter him, all in the bloodbath of central Italy as it slides into tyranny.

Ulysses leaves and a second flame shows up in the eighth of the malebolge, the evil pouches that make up the giant eighth circle of fraud in Dante’s INFERNO. We’re leaving tragedy for comedy. We’re leaving the global or universal for the local or the provincial. As always with Dante.

Although Dante damns Ulysses to the INFERNO, we needn’t. In fact, there’s a case to be made for him in his own words. He is the forefather of us, modern humans. And he is the forerunner of Dante, our poet.

Dante puts Ulysses far down in Inferno. But do we have to? Especially given the gorgeous poetics and rousing rhetoric of his monologue? Perhaps. Here’s an episode of WALKING WITH DANTE in which I build the case against Ulysses by using his own words as found in Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY.

In the first of three episodes on Ulysses’ glorious monologue in Dante’s INFERNO, we’ll take apart some of the plot knots that might now be clear, look at the construction of the monologue, and explore its absurdly gorgeous poetry.