Brunetto Latini's got questions. Too bad the pilgrim, Dante, doesn't seem to want to answer them.

Or better, Dante only seems to want to confess to this teacher. (Anybody who has ever been a teacher knows this gambit: ask a question, get the truth, not the facts you were after.)

This is indeed the game that teachers and students play/ Especially when their roles are reversed.

And must they descend to this level of competition between them? If so, Brunetto might well come out on top. He's got a history lesson about Florence and a prophecy for the pilgrim's fate, the exile that Dante the poet already faces.

That said, Brunetto's prophecy is a challenging, rhetorical knot. Should we take it at face value? Should we trust everything Brunetto says? Especially when he uses such coarse language? And vaults (at the same time) to such rhetorical heights.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the hidden agendas and strange twists in this passage. The pilgrim Dante may think he has the upper hand. His teacher, Brunetto, has other ideas.

Here are the segments of this podcast episode:

[01:23] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto XV, lines 46 - 78. If you want to follow along, they're on my website, markscarbrough.com, under the header "Walking With Dante."

[04:09] Brunetto's questions and the pilgrim's confession. Dante seems intent on telling Brunetto his plight--using Brunetto's own words and perhaps clarifying exactly what went on in Canto I of INFERNO. Do you need an older writer to help you say what you want to say about yourself? Maybe you do.

[16:45] Brunetto's history lesson and prophecy of the pilgrim's (and poet's) plight. This passage is the oddest mix of vulgar language and rhetorical gamesmanship. Is that the heart of Brunetto's poetics? Because it might also be the heart of Dante's.

[26:35] A little about INFERNO as a whole: it's partly about unlearning what the pilgrim (and maybe the poet) Dante has learned. We've already seen this with Francesca and Farinata. But now we start to see it with the very nature of poetry itself.