Our pilgrim walks back from the usurers, sitting out on the edge of the seventh circle of INFERNO, and finds that he must climb aboard the awful beast of fraud. Drama!

But there's so much more. This passage reveals our poet as a creator of modern narrative. And it shows us that he's taking full control of his poem. Virgil, be gone! Brunetto, too! This is Dante's work.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[01:12] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XVII, Lines 79 - 99. You can read along with this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:06] More about "back ends." And a forecast: the way down will involve the beasts of hell from now on.

[05:38] Dante is afraid--but he was just so brave. What's up with the changed emotions?

[08:27] The pilgrim's internal motivations are always the final stop in the narrative technique--just one of the ways our poet Dante is so modern.

[10:03] On touching the beasts of hell!

[10:47] Why is the pilgrim so silent in Canto XVII of INFERNO?

[12:43] More about the corporeality of the afterlife.

[14:31] Virgil is both a representative of a class and himself. He's Virgil in his Virgilness. Another way that our poet anticipates the problems of modern narrative.

[19:01] Finally, the beast is named! Geryon! Except that only makes things more confusing.