The Lead Weight Of Hypocrisy: Inferno, Canto XXIII, Lines 58 - 81

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have come down to the bottom of the sixth evil pouch to escape the demons from the fifth. Here, they find a group of guys in cowls or capes that look sort of like the ones from the abbey at Cluny but that are in fact made out of gilded lead.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we settle into the bottom of the sixth of the malebolge of fraud in the eighth circle of hell. Dante and Virgil are about to find out that fraud is about more than just tricking people. It's about killing them, too.Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:18] My English translation of the passage: Inferno, Canto XXIII, lines 58 -81. If you'd like to read along, you can find this translation on my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:56] The first descriptions of the hypocrites: the quiet, the procession, the cloaks, Cluny, and Frederick II, all bound up in a few lines. It's quintessential Dante![13:18] COMEDY is as much a work of assembly as it is of coherence. It's important to keep that fact in mind.[15:48] How does the punishment of hypocrisy fit the crime?[20:14] The end of this passage: a possible slam at Virgil, then one of the hypocrites finally speaks.[24:15] The on-going question of the thematics of circularity in the sins of fraud.

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Ever wanted to read Dante's Divine Comedy? Come along with us! We're not lost in the scholarly weeds. (Mostly.) We're strolling through the greatest work (to date) of Western literature. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I take on this masterpiece passage by passage. I'll give you my rough English translation, show you some of the interpretive knots in the lines, let you in on the 700 years of commentary, and connect Dante's work to our modern world. The pilgrim comes awake in a dark wood, then walks across the known universe. New episodes every Sunday and Wednesday.