Mythgard Academy

Week 23: Where Dante succumbs to the lure of base arguments and wishes he was merely in a dream. And where a bugle blast messes with Dante’s vision, and towers become giants, and not nice ones either. And Dante’s absolute terror returns and his wish to be anywhere else but the road to Hell. But Virgil trades Dante’s fame card for a ride in Antaeus fist into the dark, frozen well. There Dante’s hubris returns in time to help him harass and abuse the sinners; so much for pity and so much for brotherhood. Dante should take care not to betray his guide; we will return with ours next week as Dr. Olsen promises an end to this tour of Hell.

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

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In which we complete our tour of the Malebolge with a rather crowded tenth pouch

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In which we meet people with various kinds of bodily integrity issues.

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Week 20: Where we call bologna on Dante’s talent curbing and clearly see the simple summer simile. Where with Ulysses we pass the columns, and the poles, and founder on the shores of Mount Purgatory having found the earth round. Where we hear that one cannot logically be absolved before, or during, the commission of an evil deed or counsel. Sorry, not sorry, or something like that, Minos judges. And Dante litters his own path with cautionary examples; there but for the ‘rock’ goes he.

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

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\Week 19: A Place Among the Classics

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/​

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Guess what sin is punished by snakes. And cyclical incineration.

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Week 17: Now into the second half of the Malebolge, we look back at the closing line of Canto 21 and The Comedy's lack of humor. Then on to Canto 23, where Aesop’s frog and mouse story is called upon to warn Dante against trusting too closely the partnership of Demons. And Virgil luges Dante down the rocky slope, making a quick escape from pocket 5 to 6, where they try to hide among the lead-lined, golden-robed hypocrites.

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

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Tonight we encounter some really ... unexpected demons. What under the earth is going on here?

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Week 15: We revisit the Baptistery of San Giovanni and notice the inversions in Dante’s destroying holy furniture to save a life while the popes destroy lives to save holy money for themselves. But what is with all the feet? And do you think Boniface saw the funny side of his little cameo, or would he be depressed in determinism like his predecessor having perverted the mechanism of forgiveness and having then no path to repentance? And here Virgil the ghost grabs Dante the flesh-man and poltergeists him back to the bridge, to the fifth ditch, the rampart of the Fortune Tellers. Where Dante cranes his own head to see the parade of backward-headed shades and sheds a tear for those who weep as their fate. And Virgil rebukes Dante, and Dante corrects Virgil, and one is ready to trust the poets again.

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

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Week 14: True to the nature of Fraud, the 8th circle is an artificial construct of inverted imagery split into 10 concentric pockets, with bridges that look down upon each trench. The first pocket is a gender discriminated container for pimps and seducers, a sex traffic kept moving by demons with whips. The second pocket is an egalitarian circle of very rude words (What? Would you like to sugar coat with flowery language the circle of flattery?). The third pocket is for spiritual pimps, the fraud of simony, punished in inversions of baptismal fonts with sprinklings of fire on feet. The core of these three - the pimps, the seducers, and the flatterers - is treating people as beasts for their own gain. O see what Dante did there. Then, with one mention of Dante’s guilt at breaking the Baptistry of Saint John, the session ends with an internet crash.

For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

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