We've already explored the source material behind the third metamorphosis in the pit of the thieves, the seventh of the malebolge in the great landscape of fraud. Now let's talk through the implications in this passage.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run from the mundane to the meta-insane with this most complicated metamorphosis, in which Dante the poet finally busts up the camaraderie he's had with his forefather poets and, well, becomes his own literary father. Or is scared to become him. Or wants to despite himself.
Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:52] My rough English translation of this passage: Inferno, Canto XXV, lines 79 - 141. If you'd like to read along, you can find this passage on my website, markscarbrough.com.
[05:19] Our ten implications from this passage. One, there's gay panic here, too, as in the second metamorphosis in this pit.
[06:23] Two, the metaphors are fully integrated into the passage--which might indicate a developmental hypothesis among the three metamorphoses in this pit.
[09:45] Three, this is the first punishment that would be turned into more stories for all of eternity.
[12:48] Four, this metamorphosis has normative rules--as does modern, Western narrative.
[14:34] Five, does the punishment fit the crime in this pit?
[19:11] Six, Lucan has been in this pit from the start--and for good reason, given the thematics of his PHARSALIA.
[21:16] Seven, the camaraderie of Limbo is busted.
[22:28] Eight, can you finally swap places with your literary fathers (or forebearers)?
[23:17] Nine, does this pit express the fear of losing your identity to your literary fathers (or forebearers)?
[25:19] Ten, language finally breaks down into soliloquy, not dialogue, which sets us up for the next great sinner of hell, just ahead of us.
[28:34] A coda: remember, it's still the early 1300s, not the postmodern moment.