The Third Great Sinner of Hell, Pier delle Vigne: Inferno, Canto XIII, Lines 46 - 78
Dante, our pilgrim, has done as Virgil instructed: he's torn a branch off a bramble, only to have it spit blood and air--and words!The bush is the soul of one of the great courtiers of the Middle Ages: Pier della Vigne. He's here because . . . well, if you trust him, for nothing of his doing.His speech is a tour de force of literary technique. Our poet is pulling out all the stops.And maybe starting a fire, too. Because what if you can't trust what you read? Isn't that literary suicide?Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I explore one of the great speeches of INFERNO, if not all of COMEDY. Here are…
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