The Limits Of Credulity In A Poem About The Afterlife: Inferno, Canto XIII, Lines 109 - 126

Pier may have stopped speaking--Virgil and Dante, our pilgrim, aren't sure--but he doesn't carry on because through the underbrush crash two naked souls, all scratched up, trying to get away from horrible, black hounds.

These are those who commit economic suicide, who squander their property until there's nothing left--and who perhaps masochistically take pleasure in the destruction of their own wealth.

But this passage--so often skipped over in the commentary of INFERNO--is about so much more. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore three giant "what?!" moments in Inferno, Canto XIII. If Pier's speeches tested our abilities to ferret out exactly what he was really saying, this passage will stretch our "willing suspension of disbelief" to its utter limits. Is that the point? Is this whole canto about how rhetoric can make us believe the unbelievable?

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:36] My English translation of the passage from Inferno: Canto XIII, lines 109 - 126. You can find it on my website, markscarbrough.com. But better yet, get yourself a great translation by a scholar like Lombardo or the Hollanders. You'll be so much happier1

[03:14] More about believing! If you don't think this canto was about the faith statement that reading entails, you're just not paying attention!

[03:43] So many commentators see this passage as an "inset" episode: plunked down here. Is it? It seems to tie back to Pier in fundamental ways.

[05:10] Who are these two crashing through the underbrush?

[10:23] My three "what?!" moments in this passage. I think they offer us two alternatives, as you'll hear. I want to believe the second. But I'm still not sure.

[18:33] The inferno of irony. What is it about INFERNO that allows Dante the poet to play so much? What is it about this canto that allows savage ironies, even directed against me, the reader?