Saved At Last . . . By Mercury, Jesus, The Archangel Michael, Someone: INFERNO, Canto IX, Lines 64 - 106

How long have we been standing with the pilgrim and his guide in front of the walls of Dis? For ten episodes of this podcast!

Now comes salvation . . . in the form of a messenger . . . from heaven? And who is this, so above the fracas of Styx?

Salvation was always on the way. So what was everyone so worried about?

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

[01:26] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto IX, lines 64 - 106. If you'd like to read along, continue the conversation with me, or find a deeper study guide for this episode, find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:32] Our passage starts with two allusions out of Virgil's AENEID, one from early in the epic and one from near the end. These two get fused in front of the walls of Dis and offer us the full sweep of Virgil's epic just before we pass out of Virgil's imaginative landscape.

[07:52] Then a simile from Ovid, that shows all the derring-do Dante-the-poet could ever muster as he renovates a strange allusion into a Christian context. Our poet is nothing if not brave!

[11:02] The messenger arrives. Jesus? Mercury? The Archangel Michael? Saint Peter? Hercules? Aeneas? The Holy Roman Emperor Henry VII? The devil in charge of this circle? Or all of them together? Jesus is the word of God made flesh. Mercury carries the words of the gods to mortals . . . and a medieval allegory for the good use of language. Maybe this figure is the coming of eloquence when a poet needs it most, when Dante is about to step away from his master's imaginative landscape and into his own.

[17:29] We've had disdain from the demons, but here comes legitimate disdain, righteous and rather impatient, as the whole scene ends in its forgone conclusion.