Dante, our pilgrim, leaves Farinata's tomb almost unwillingly--at least, he has to force himself back to Virgil and continue his journey.

Something about the encounter with the heretics in the sixth circle of hell is so profound, it stops the forward momentum of COMEDY for a bit.

But there's more ahead, including the tomb of a heretic pope and the foul smell of the lowest pits of hell. We're about to enter the abyss, what could be called "Tartarus," the place the poet Vergil and his hero Aeneas couldn't go, the place Dante-the-poet dares to go.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we get a first whiff of the worst parts of hell and take refuge under a tomb that contains the second piece of writing in hell but that causes more problems than it solves.

Here are the segments of this episode:

[00:56] More about Dante-the-pilgrim and Farinata. I think I've finally figured out how to describe their fraught relationship.

[03:17] My English language translation of this passage from INFERNO: Canto X, Line 121b, through Canto XI, Line 15.

[05:38] The first knotty problem in this passage: Dante's (well) disobedience of Virgil. His guide has been signaling him to move on. He hasn't. In fact, he's asked more questions of Farinata. What's going on here? And why are there so many references to the first canto of INFERNO in this passage?

[14:26] Virgil makes Dante a promise about a beautiful woman's eyes. Who is this woman? And even more pressingly, why is this promise never fulfilled in COMEDY?

[19:47] A bit of the plot: the stench of lower hell and our first glimpse of the abyss.

[22:00] A tomb with an inscription--to a pope! With maybe a bishop in tow! Who are these people? (Mind you, no one really knows.) Might there be an artistic answer for this garbled passage?