Our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, walk just beyond the gate of hell to encounter, well, the sort of hell we thought we were going to get all along.

More specifically, we're come to the place of the angels and humans who refused to make a choice in this life, all of whom are stung by wasps and flies, all of whom are steeped in maggots.

A cliché of images, this passage is also the wild west of Christian theology. Dante-the-poet is making it up fast and loose! Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we follow the pilgrim into the first feet of the afterlife.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:17] My English translation of the passage for this episode: INFERNO, Canto III, Lines 22 - 69

[04:12] A little pep talk from me to spur you on in reading the COMEDY with me.

[07:42] "I began to weep"--the pilgrim's first response to hell. Here's where the passage starts to get complex: the irony of Virgil's pleasant look before all this torture and the irony of the pilgrim's sympathy for those who have chosen their own fate. Or did God choose it? Not clear!

[12:48] A first glance at the damned--and a first glance at the expansive nature of Dante-the-poet's imagination: He can make up celestial beings that exist nowhere else in Christianity, angels who neither fought for God nor chose to side with Lucifer.

[17:00] What is sin? Is it a choice? Or a state of being? Dante-the-poet seems to be choosing "choice." Problem is, the church isn't at this point in history. Or at least, not choosing it consistently.

[19:33] A little bit of existential reality from this very medieval poet.

[21:48] Who is the shade who made "the great refusal"? So many critics and scholars seem to know the answer. But then why are there so many answers?

[27:17] One final problem: Maybe not giving us adequate clues to solve the matter of who made "the great refusal" shows us our pilgrim's cowardice. Maybe his refusal to name this person shows us that he's still trying to remain neutral. Maybe the poet in the wings is far smarter about the pilgrim's journey than we first imagined.

[29:17] We got the hell we wanted. We see the torments and the wailings. And we're not really even in hell yet, just on the porch. Good, glad we got it out of the way. Because now the poet's imagination can be fully engaged.