We've come to the bottom of the circle of fraud and to one of the most complicated, self-aware, and modern similes in all of INFERNO. Is it connected to fraud? Or to art? Or both?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore Virgil's stern rebuke of the pilgrim, which brings out the poet Dante, who offers us a gorgeous simile about the divided, modern self, a self in contradiction with itself, narcissistic, if not Narcissus. Here are the bottom of fraud, we find the authentic self exposing itself as a fraud--which is about as fabulous as Dante can get.

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

[01:38] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XXX, line 130, through Canto XXXI, line 6. If you'd like to read along or offer a comment, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:11] Why does Virgil rebuke Dante the pilgrim so aggressively? Three possible reasons.

[07:50] Dante the poet appears in the passage. Why?

[09:07] The poet gives us one of the most fascinating similes in INFERNO: the divided, dreaming, even "subconscious" self--which forces the pilgrim Dante into silence.

[14:12] Canto XXX ends with the best passage to justify the notion of Virgil as an allegory of reason.

[16:15] The progression in the passage: Virgil - the pilgrim - the poet - Virgil.

[18:55] Dante is playing a dangerous game: I am the great poet who went on the pilgrim's journey to become the great poet that I am.

[21:05] The tenth of the evil pouches (the "malebolge") ends with a full-on carnival of twinning.

[23:47] The difficult interpretive problem of Achilles, his father, and their spear.