Dante is still out of breath because of the arduous climb out of the sixth of the malebolge of fraud. But he doesn't want Virgil to know it!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as the pilgrim Dante hears something he can't understand and wants to get a lot closer to this unintelligible voice. He and Virgil cross the bridge to climb down a bit on the wall and peer into the seventh pit of the eighth circle of hell.

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

[01:17] Virgil is the character in flux in COMEDY. Why and how?

[05:24] The passage for this episode: Inferno, Canto XXIV, lines 61 - 78. If you'd like to see this passage, you can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[06:56] The landscape may be becoming more rugged although the bridges across the pits of fraud are becoming more architecturally sound.

[09:11] Dante's words-even when he's pretending--make more sense than the words of some others in the pit.

[11:13] Who is this voice that is not capable of making sense?

[13:26] Notes on a textual problem in the passage: "ad ire" v. "ad ira."

[17:05] The narrative engine has slowed down dramatically.

[19:38] Dante makes clear he has to be an eyewitness to whatever is happening in the seventh of the malebolge.

[20:45] Virgil speaks in aphorisms (if perhaps ironic ones). Doing so is part of the structure of COMEDY.