INFERNO, Canto XII, comes to its conclusion with a "zoo" of those who have been violent against others, including Alexander the Great (perhaps), Attila the Hun (more sure), and even local brigands from the highways of Tuscany.

It's been a long ride to get here: down a scree-filled slope, past the Minotaur, up against threatening centaurs (who turn out to be really nice guys), and on across the river of boiling blood. Why did it take us so long to get to the murders and the plunderers? It's a grand question.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I posit some answers to it at the end of Inferno, Canto XII. Here are the segments of this rather complicated episode:

[00:50] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XII, lines 103 - 139.

[03:38] Nessus tells Dante-the-pilgrim that he's looking at "the tyrants." What exactly is tyranny?

[07:57] A break in the action in which--of all things--Virgil bows out.

[11:13] The stream gets shallower--and a discussion of relics in medieval Europe.

[13:43] The more common murderers and (perhaps) the fording of the boiling river of blood.

[14:45] Why is it hard to identify some of these figures in the river?

[17:56] The plunderers are pointed out--or maybe not.

[22:30] The first problem with Canto XII: The question of Dante-the-poet's attitude to the material, either perhaps an intellectual challenge or an emotional one (perhaps even guilt).

[24:42] The second problem in the canto: a strange bit of camaraderie.

[25:29] A third problem: the pilgrim's silence throughout this canto.

[26:10] Dante is the poet of corporeality. Perhaps that's what's giving him fits here.