Our pilgrim, Dante, and his guide, Virgil, have come down to a place where they can see into the darkness of the seventh of the malebolge, the evil pouches that make up the eighth circle of fraud in hell.

And what a sight they see! A pit of writhing snakes, one sinner bitten, then incinerated and reconstituted, right before their eyes.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we slow-walk through Dante's masterwork COMEDY. Hell is about to get wild. The poet, too!

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

[01:32] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XXIV, lines 97 - 120. If you'd like to read along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:56] A little pep talk for reading on in Dante's COMEDY.

[05:50] The first snake bite: right between the shoulder blades of an unknown sinner.

[10:29] The soul burns up--and Dante the poet burns up texts in a conflagration of literary allusions.

[15:31] What's with the "o" and the "i" bit? Four possible interpretations. (And there are of course probably many more.)

[21:12] The phoenix as a symbol of the resurrection--but here?

[25:03] A final metaphor to explain the sinner's incineration and rebirth: demonic possession or a medical condition?

[29:37] The poet steps out from behind the curtain to speak--and only complicates matters further.