We’re reading straight through INFERNO, the first third (or so) of Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY (or “The Divine Comedy,” as some insist on calling it, although he never did). In this episode, we follow Dante the pilgrim and Virgil through the last pit of fraud, the one with the sickening falsifiers, then on down to the giants who line the final circle of Cocytus.

We’re reading straight through Dante’s INFERNO, the first third (or so) of his masterpiece COMEDY, as a celebration of our having slow-walked through the entire piece. Here, we’re at Cantos 26 - 28 of my English translation: the false counselors and the schismatics. These are two nasty pits of fraud. And they contain some of the most interesting characters in all of INFERNO.

Dante and Virgil continue on down through the pits of fraud, the eighth circle of hell in INFERNO. We’ve come to the pit of fraud. Ovid and Lucan don’t stand a chance against our poet!

To celebrate the finish of our slow-walk through INFERNO, the first third of Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY, we’re reading straight through INFERNO without any interpretive blather or critical assessments. Here, we’re at Cantos 21 - 23: Dante and Virgil among the demons in the fraud’s fifth evil pouch of the barrators, then down with them into the sixth pouch of the lead-gold hypocrites.

As a celebration for finishing our slow-walk through INFERNO, the first third (or so) of Dante’s masterwork, COMEDY, we’re reading straight through the text in my English translation without any interpretive blather or commentary. In this episode, we’re in the first four evil pouches of fraud in the eighth circle of hell—that is, INFERNO, Cantos 18 - 20.

We’ve finished a passage-by-passage slow-walk through Dante’s INFERNO and now we’re enjoying it for what it was all along: a plot. That is, the story of a lost guy who gets an impressive if fallible guide to lead him across the known universe and to that elusive place called “home.” In this episode, INFERNO, Cantos 14 - 17, in my English translation.

Mark Scarbrough reads through INFERNO, Cantos 11 - 13, from his English translation without any commentary or interpretive blather, a reward for our slow-walk across the first third (or so) of Dante’s masterwork, COMEDY.

Having walked through Dante’s INFERNO passage by passage, we’re now reading it straight through in my English translation to see the work for what it is: a story, the narrative on one man’s walk across the known universe. Here, we’re at INFERNO, Cantos 8 - 10: across Styx, before the walls of Dis, through the gates of the city, up to, and then beyond the heretics.

A reading of INFERNO, Cantos 4 - 7, not a series of interpretive knots, classical allusions, or meta-poetical games. Rather, a reading for what it is: a story. Or the story of one person’s walk across hell—and eventually, his known universe. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for my translation of INFERNO, Cantos 4 - 7, with nothing more than the text itself.

We’ve walked through INFERNO point by point. We’ve discussed so many angles. We’ve tried to untie so many knots. But we’ve missed something: the narrative through-line. As a conclusion to the first canticle of Dante’s masterpiece, COMEDY, let’s read through INFERNO. Here’s the first part: Cantos 1 - 3 in my English translation.

The end of INFERNO. In just a few lines, Dante and Virgil walk out of hell. But not without leaving us with some interpretive problems. What is this little stream they follow? And not without leaving us with the essence of Dante’s COMEDY, of “comedy” as a whole: the damned Virgil walks out from hell to see the stars.

At the end of INFERNO, Dante the poet lets Virgil remain Virgil. The old poet is the best guide. He offers some epic myth-making in the style of THE AENEID. And he alters the Christian account of the fall of Satan to accommodate Dante’s own vision of the ethical (not ontological) notion of evil.

More about up, down, and spin as Dante the pilgrim and Virgil pass the center of the earth and flip the globe upside-down. That turn makes all the left turns in hell right turns. And the universe spins to the right. So they’ve been headed in the direction of the universe all along. Which means that turn at Satan’s butt turns INFERNO into COMEDY.

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil pass the middle point of the universe—which is Satan’s anus. Or maybe his genitals. Does Satan need a digestive tract? Do angels need genitals? And while we’re at it, why is Satan the center of the universe? Because he’s the way out. Because he’s the axis on which the heavens turn. Because the way down has been the way up all along.

The last vision of hell: Satan’s mouths stuffed with the three worst sinners. Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius. Wait . . . what? Brutus and Cassius. Walk with me through the last moments in hell: a backward glance across Cocytus (the ninth circle) and a troubling passage that leaves us with lots of questions as well as a typical moment of Dantean bawdy humor, here at the bottom of everything.

Dante the pilgrim has the final vision of INFERNO: Satan, stuck in the ice of Cocytus. But perhaps it’s wise to step back and talk about this figure of Satan, both from Hebraic traditions and in medieval thought. It’s hard to see Satan without the Reformation and even modern horror movie depictions of him in our heads. But perhaps we should, to try to see Dante’s vision of this grandiose figure.

We’re getting closer to Satan with our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil. Close enough that we can see Satan’s three faces. And their colors. And his size. All of which has become the cause of tons of scholarship. As well as a little heresy in the passage, one Dante will eventually eschew.

There are seven direct addresses to the reader in Dante’s INFERNO. What can these seven tell us about the sort of reader Dante imagines for his poem? What does Dante want from us? How does he see us through the scrim of his words? And what demands does Dante place on us?

We’ve walked with Dante and Virgil to the final revelation of INFERNO: Satan, stuck at the center of the earth, a mere edifice, pure structure, motion without movement, and the end of our journey down. We may have also come to the end of Dante’s infernal poetics. The poet must now find a new way to write as he dies to his old ways and comes alive to what’s ahead.

Brother Alberigo is the last sinner to speak in Dante’s INFERNO—and his speech is one of the last chances for Dante’s capacious imagination to open wide. We get zombies. We get theological problems. We get classical references. In other words, we get a final moment when Dante can sum up his work in INFERNO with one of the most unforgettable sequences in the canticle of pain.