Noshing On The Worst Sinners In Hell: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, Lines 46 - 69

We've come to our last moments in hell. Here, our pilgrim Dante sees the three worst sinners in human history: Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius.

Wait . . . what? Brutus and Cassius. Indeed, being gnashed by Satan at the center of the earth.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through this difficult passage and try to figure out its many tricky implications . . . and its little bit of bawdy humor. This is Dante, after all.

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

[01:23] My English translation of the passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, lines 46 - 69. If you'd like to print it off, read along, or drop a comment, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:53] Satan as a seraph without flight, or as a bird without flight.

[05:59] Satan as a sailing vessel without motion.

[08:05] Satan as a bat, the fourth image--a strange, neither-here-nor-there creature in medieval mythology.

[10:46] Satan's billowing wings.

[12:39] Our last glimpse of hell.

[13:15] Satan's wind as the first (of many) "felix culpa" (or "fortunate fall") in Canto XXXIV.

[15:09] Satan's weeping and gnashing: a traditional Christian notion of hell's torments.

[17:57] Satan's tears and blood as a perversion of the crucifixion of Jesus and/or a cross-reference to the Old Man of Crete.

[19:21] The first sinner in his mouths: Judas Iscariot.

[20:58] A pastoral image at the bottom of hell and in the face(s) of Satan.

[21:49] Satan as an inversion of the eucharist (along with a butt joke).

[23:15] Judas and the allegory of the human spine.

[29:28] The second sinner in his mouths: Brutus.

[32:30] The third sinner in this mouths: Cassius.

[34:14] Treachery against God = treachery against the church AND against the state.

[36:27] The journey through hell took one day.

[37:28] "For we have seen all there is to see."

[39:05] Rereading this passage: INFERNO, Canto XXXIV, lines 46 - 69.