We come to the end of Canto XXIII and the sixth of the evil pouches, the malebolge, that make up the subsets of fraud in the eighth circle of INFERNO. Virgil has already seen something that has left him gawking, maybe even a representation of his own fate.
But Virgil's humiliations aren't over. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the final moments among the hypocrites in hell. There's more to come as the old poet realizes that he's been tricked, that he's been lied to, and that his overconfidence almost got the pilgrim Dante into real trouble.
How can Dante (the poet AND the pilgrim) redeem his relationship with Virgil?
Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:46] My English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XXIII, lines 127 - 148. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com.
[03:55] How exactly is Caiaphas a hypocrite?
[08:08] At last, the revelation that Evil Tail (Malecoda) lied to Virgil, who'd trusted the demon. There are no bridges that span the sixth of the malebolge (the evil pouches) of fraud in the eighth circle of hell.
[16:14] The nasty reply of the hypocrite, who uses a sacred text to needle Virgil.
[20:31] Structural concerns in Canto XXIII--that is, the canto works both linearly and geometrically.
[24:23] The problem of Virgil's footprints--in other words, is Virgil corporeal? (That old question!)
[26:03] How are Virgil's feet "dear" to our pilgrim and poet Dante?