Repenting To A Heretic: INFERNO, Canto X, Lines 94 - 121a

We finish our time with Farinata with a discussion that gets stranger by the minute. There's definitely a camaraderie between our pilgrim and this Ghibelline warlord.

The grander question? Is there a camaraderie between our poet and Farinata?

There are many strange things in this passage toward the back of INFERNO, Canto X. 1) Farinata's discussion of how the damned see time. 2) Dante's desire to be absolved of something--but what? 3) Our pilgrim's attempts to mitigate the sufferings of the damned. And 4) our pilgrim as a peacemaker, someone who finally gets a Ghibelline to talk to a Guelph.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this strange conversation in INFERNO, a passage so rife with problems and unresolved issues that our poet will find the need to bring it up twice more: once in PURGATORIO and once in PARADISO.

Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:06] My English translation INFERNO: Canto X, lines 94 - 121a. If you'd like to read along, find a deeper study guide, or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please find this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:35] Camaraderie and even benevolence. Our pilgrim grants Farinata something that Farinata could never have had in this life: peace.

[09:45] Our pilgrim asks a fundamental question: How do the damned know the future? At the same time, it seems he's misdirecting his real problem. Sure, he's asking to solve a metaphysical knot. But isn't there a personal knot that also needs to be untied?

[13:06] Farinata offers a shocking answer about how the damned see time. What's more, the farthest point ever referenced in time is put in Farinata's mouth. Why not in St. Paul's? Or someone far more worthy?

[21:05] The pilgrim finally repents--for the first time in COMEDY. But what exactly is he sorry for? And do his words cover his guilt?

[27:24] Who else is in that tomb with Farinata? Two storied figures: one from history, Frederick II; and one with a family tree in COMEDY, Ottaviano degli Ubaldini.

[31:55] Then Farinata withdraws, going as he arrived: in Stoic glory.