Virgil, Your Map Of Hell Needs A Little Work: Inferno, Canto XI, Lines 67 - 90

Walking With Dante

Most of INFERNO Canto XI is taken up with Virgil's description of the road ahead, his "mappa-inferno," as it were. The old poet claims he's laid it all out with "clear reasoning."

But maybe not, because our pilgrim has a couple of questions for his guide.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first of these questions, really one about geography: Why are some people inside the walls of Dis and others outside?

This passage is quite complex because it involves some (loopy) scholastic reasoning, which will never quite do the trick it's supposed to do. It's supposed to explain reality. Instead, it omits as much as it includes.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:05] My English translation of the passage from INFERNO: Canto XI, lines 67 - 90. If you'd like to look at my translation, you can find it out my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."

[03:16] First up, the pilgrim's question. It starts in flattery and then moves on to question the very mapping Virgil has (ostensibly) so carefully worked out.

[06:45] The pilgrim's question actually reveals a structural coherence in the "upper" circles of hell we may have missed.

[08:23] Now on to Virgil's answer, both its sadism (he is absurdly angry) and its logic. God has a vendetta. How does that work out?

[14:00] A long section on the ramifications of Virgil's answer. There's so much to consider here, not only the three sorts of sin he outlines, but the changing nature both of hell and Virgil's character in COMEDY.