Episodes
-
Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have a little ways to go before they finally exit the terrace of pride. In fact, Dante has to come to a surprising revelation: It's getting easier. And Virgil has to explain why: Desire is being purified. How? By erasing what God has written.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the interpretive dilemmas and philosophical quagmires of the final moments on the terrace of pride, the first of the terraces of Purgatory proper in Dante's PURGATORIO.
If you'd like to help support this podcast and help cover its stream, licensing, web-hosting, and royalty fees, please consider donating at this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:12] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 118 - 139. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[03:36] The climb in hell and in Purgatory both involve the notion of a throat.
[06:44] Pride is the primary sin and delight is the primary motivation forward. But has it always been this way in COMEDY?
[12:57] Canto XII ends on a light-hearted note . . . perhaps for poetic reasons.
[16:32] First hard question: Is Dante the pilgrim truly expunged of pride?
[19:51] Second hard question: Has Dante the poet moved the fence of his world to include himself in his own schematics?
[24:56] Third hard question: Why does God's writing have to be erased?
[30:53] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 118 - 139.
-
Dante and Virgil begin their climb from the first to the second terrace of Purgatory but as they do, they climb up in an incredibly contorted and difficult simile that swaps around emotional landscapes before landing them in the song of Jesus's beatitudes as well as the screams of hell.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the climb out in this most difficult simile.
Please consider contributing to underwrite the many fees associated with this otherwise unsponsored podcast. To do so, visit this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 100 - 117. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[03:18] The giant simile about the staircase up to San Miniato al Monte and to the second terrace of Purgatory.
[08:50] Four reasons why this simile is so difficult (and perhaps contorted).
[13:29] The body/soul problem once again that ends with the first of the beatitudes.
[15:50] The inescapable landscape of hell.
[19:23] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 100 - 117.
-
Missing episodes?
-
Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory.
If you'd like to help out, please consider donating to keep this podcast afloat. You can do at this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:22] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:47] Virgil returns to being Virgil: a guide to the afterlife who quote himself.
[08:08] Virgil and the angel both seem to set the plot in motion again.
[11:19] Virgil seems more interested in what's ahead and less interested in the reliefs and carvings. In fact, he seems to mistake the lesson from those carvings: Some days, like Trajan's, happen again and again in an eternal art form.
[14:08] The strength of COMEDY is that the complex always resolves into the simple.
[16:17] Irony: Virgil's "simple" ethic contains a Dantean neologism.
[17:20] The beautiful angel contains an implicit and perhaps redemptive reference to Lucifer (or Satan).
[21:11] Who speaks the condemnation against humanity? The angel or Dante the poet?
[25:54] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99.
-
Dante the poet adds a coda to his (fake) ekphrastic poetry on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He steps back and explains the very nature of the art to us: realer than real, as it were. Then he moves the passage out from its narrative base and into a moral lesson based on an allegorical (and anagogical) reading of his masterwork, COMEDY.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the last passage on the theory of art for this terrace of PURGATORIO.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:29] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 64 - 72.
[02:40] Dante seems to double down on the artistic claims of the terrace of pride.
[05:52] Dante reminds us that we're reading an allegorical (and anagogical) poem.
[10:16] Humans create their moral truths by telling lies.
[16:21] Rereading the passage: Purgatorio, Canto XII, lines 64 - 72.
-
We've spent three episodes going over the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. Now let's step back and look at the whole passage. Yes, its sweet. But also its curiously crafted problems. And the way it leaves us with more questions than answers, even though we're supposed to take away a very distinct moral lesson.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run through this entire complicated passage in PURGATORIO.
If you'd like to help out with the many costs associated with this podcast, please consider donating through this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:12] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 22 - 63. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[04:18] Biblical, classical, and historical figures flatten the interpretive landscape. Is Ovid of an equal weight to the Bible?
[06:33] The passage is an acrostic poem: each tercet starts with a specific letter, here to spell out "man." But does that rhetorical technique actually work for this passage? Are these all "men"? Or even humans?
[10:05] The tercets are thematically in sets of four: the judgment of God, of the self, and of others. Again, doesn't that flatten the moral landscape?
[12:46] Do the penitents have to be this learned to glean the intended lesson? And is this the sum total of the reliefs on the terrace? Or are there more?
[15:13] How can you be guilty of pride against or toward a God you don't know?
[18:12] Where do these figures fit in hell? And while we're at it, where does pride fit in hell?
[21:29] Why does this passage end with Troy, the noble city?
[22:53] Why is this fake ekphrastic poetry?
-
We've come to the last four reliefs in the paving stones of the terrace of pride. We're almost on our way to the next terrace of Purgatory . . . but not quite. Dante the pilgrim has to pay attention to these final moments, the final exemplars, some of whom are stated outright in the carvings and some of whom are strangely occluded.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look through this last passage on the reliefs in the road bed. There are still plenty of surprises under our feet!
Please consider donating to help me cover licensing, streaming, hosting, web domain, and other fees associated with this unsponsored podcast. If you'd like to make a contribution, you can do so at this PayPal link.
Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:24] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 49 - 60. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please visit my website, markscarbrough.com.
[02:42] The final figures in the hard pavement: Alcmeon (and Eriphyle), Sennacherib, Tomyris (and Cyrus), and Holofernes (and Judith).
[11:16] The craft of the passage: children killing their parents v. women killing warlords, sacred spaces v. profane/political slaughter, occluded v. presented figures.
[15:41] Curiosities in the passage: the unnamed figures, the allegory of the hard pavement, the connection between Sennacherib and Satan, and the odd notion of Holofernes' "relics."
[21:24] Our final discussion on the virtue of humility: its possible evolutionary necessity for a communal animal.
-
We're still walking on top of the reliefs of the prideful in the road bed of the first terrace of Mount Purgatory after the gate: the terrace of pride. Here, Dante the pilgrim sees four more figures: two from the classical age and two from the Biblical age. And the classical figures seem distinctly connected to art.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore another short passage on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride.
Would you like to help support this podcast? I have many fees--domain, licensing, streaming, hosting, and more--and I could use a little help covering them, since I remain otherwise unsupported. To help out and donate a little, please visit this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:31] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 37 - 48. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please visit my website: markscarbrough.com.
[02:39] The figures in the road bed in this passage: Niobe, Saul, Arachne, and Reheboam.
[10:06] The craft of this passage: Ovid's Metamorphosis v. the Bible; poetry and art v. politics and revolt.
[13:00] One curiosity in the passage: suicides.
[15:43] The second of three discussions on the difficulty of making humility a virtue.
-
Virgil has directed Dante the pilgrim to look down at the road bed. Dante sees figures carved into the terrace . . . and he begins to walk on pride, the way one might walk over tombs in the floor of a church.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first four figures carved into road bed. Who are they? How is the passage crafted? And what can they tell us about the dualism of pride and humility?
Want to help support this otherwise unsupported podcast? You can donate to help me cover licensing, streaming, hosting, domain, and other fees by visiting this PayPal link right here.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:02] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 25 - 36. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[03:47] Who are these figures? Lucifer, Briareus, Apollo, Athena, Mars, Jupiter, and Nimrod.
[10:14] What are the rhetorical, thematic, and formal poetic structures used to describe this first set of four exemplars.
[14:45] One curiosity in the passage: Statius's THEBIAD may lie behind much of it.
[15:55] Another curiosity: One set of figures are NOT exemplars of pride.
[16:59] A final curiosity: Apollo's occluded presence in the passage.
[19:33] The first of three discussions on the difficulty of making humility a virtue.
-
The opening of PURGATORIO, Canto XII, becomes even stranger as the poet Dante claims that the art he’s about to see beneath his feet is even clearer than the actual events when they happened.
All well and good, until we remember this isn’t God’s art, as Dante wants us to believe. It’s Dante’s. And audacious.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the second half of the opening twenty-four lines of PURGATORIO, Canto XII.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:29] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 13 - 24. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[02:37] Virgil's call back to realism (or mimesis).
[04:30] Tombs and their signs (or symbolic language).
[09:56] Artifice as "realer" than real.
[21:00] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 13 - 24.
-
Dante is still hunched over, going along like a dumb ox, paired up with the souls on the terrace of pride. His pride has been lanced by their monologues.
Until Virgil tells him to be like the damned Ulysses. And then he straightens up and heads out.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the curious opening lines to PURGATORIO, Canto XII. Dante seems to want to have it both ways at once. But all cakes spoil, no matter how careful you are.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:02] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 1 - 12. If you'd like to read along or leave a comment and continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[02:24] Did Dante really create a problem with the redemption of Provenzan Salvani in PURGATORIO, Canto XI?
[05:19] Has Dante really morphed into the oxen pulling the cart with the ark, rather than being Uzzah who touches and steadies the ark?
[09:55] How is Virgil Dante's tutor?
[11:30] Why does Virgil prompt Dante to be Ulysses?
[13:05] How exactly is Dante "emptied out"?
[16:18] Does the passage include a mistake about Virgil?
-
Some personal news . . . and not the sort I ever want to share . . . about future episodes of this podcast. I hope you'll understand.
-
If you'd like to make a contribution to help me with hosting, licensing, streaming, editing, and royalty fees, please consider visiting this PayPal link right here.
We’ve come to the end of PURGATORIO, Canto XI . . . and the end of the artist Oderisi’s monologue. He finishes up, not with more about himself, but with the tale of the third penitent we see on the first terrace after the gate: Provenzan Salvani, a bad boy from Siena who plotted Florence's demise and who also perhaps foreshadows our poet's exile.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore some of the gorgeous poetry in this passage and try to come to terms with how Dante is constructing this very new bit of theology: Purgatory.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:31] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 109 - 139. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:30] Echoes in the opening lines of this passage: from the Bible, from INFERNO.
[08:59] Back to the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 CE.
[11:04] The kinds of pride on this first terrace of Purgatory.
[12:58] A gorgeous passage in the Florentine.
[15:36] Provenzan Salvani, a Ghibelline tyrant from Siena who plotted Florence's demise.
[18:09] "Contrapasso" or "debt"?
[20:24] The logistics of Dante's Purgatory.
[23:37] A murky repentance.
[26:52] Another prophecy of Dante's exile.
[28:50] The gloss life gives to art.
[31:09] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 109 - 139.
-
I said we'd move on to the second half of Oderisi da Gubbio's speech . . . but there's no way we can. There are still so many unanswered questions about the way Dante cryptically inserts himself into the text, the way the art of miniaturization reflects the new style in poetry that Dante practices, and the very fact that Dante meets someone whose life is spent with manuscripts.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work our way through more questions about the first half of Oderisi's speech in PURGATORIO.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:57] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 73 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation (yes, please!), go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:46] Oderisi and Franco are indeed mentioned by others but mostly centuries after Dante. And for what it's worth, is Dante even writing a history-based poem?
[06:48] Oderisi calls Dante the pilgrim "brother"--as in monastic brotherhood or as in the talk of artistic guilds?
[08:32] Dante puts the prophetic denunciation in the mouth of a character, rather than in the poet's interpolation.
[12:38] Dante meets a miniaturist, an illuminator . . . and the new style of poetry was mostly practiced in small poems like sonnets and canzone.
[17:34] In my interpretation, Dante the poet remains unnamed in the tercet about the Guidos. Should we see a psychological or artistic development here?
[22:13] Dante meets an illuminator, the sort who our poet might hope would someday work on COMEDY.
-
If you'd like to help underwrite this podcast, WALKING WITH DANTE, you can use this PayPal link right here.
On Purgatory's terrace of pride, we turn from noble Omberto to an artist, a manuscript illuminator, Oderisi da Gubbio, who delivers some of the most memorable lines in all of PURGATORIO.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the first half of Oderisi's speech, all about the vagaries of artistic fame, the passing of Cimabue in favor of Giotto, and the coming of a poet who can kick two well-known Guido's out of the Italian nest.
Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:49] My English translation of this passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 73 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation about this passage, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[05:18] Dante the pilgrim and the illuminator Oderisi appear to know each other--which may well be a first comment on the vagaries of artistic fame.
[06:48] Who were Oderisi da Gubbio and the Bolognese Franco?
[11:55] Laughter may be near the root of Dante's art.
[14:25] And desire may lie near the root of Dante's understanding of human behavior.
[18:29] Oderisi mixes his metaphors--he is no poet!
[20:21] Giotto surpasses Cimabue in the development of craft and its tie to fame.
[23:35] And someone (Dante?) may well pass the two Guidos in literature . . . although he may be more humbled than first appears to be the case.
[27:28] The prideful in PURGATORIO's first terrace reference the heretics in INFERNO.
[29:44] The end of the passage makes Brunetto Latini's grand, heroic speech into a lie.
[34:52] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 73 - 108.
-
We've come to the first penitent who speaks after the gate of Purgatory: Omberto Aldobrandesco. He's from a storied, titled family, a nobleman brought low. Or is he?
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we hear Omberto's side of the story, try to discern his character through his words, and ponder why Dante makes the first penitent of Purgatory proper so very boring.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:27] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 46 - 72. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.
[03:55] More decentering in the passage: Is Dante trying to decenter (or humble) the reader?
[09:35] Is Omberto Aldobrandesco humbled?
[14:12] Or is he still prideful?
[15:54] Or is he both?
[17:49] Who was Omberto Aldobrandesco?
[22:55] Omberto articulates the basic understanding of purgation in PURGATORIO.
[25:53] But why does Dante make the first penitent beyond Purgatory's gate so, well, boring?
[29:16] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 46 - 72.
-
If you'd like to help out with editing, licensing, streaming, hosting, and website fees for this podcast, please consider donating at this PayPal link right here.
Dante the pilgrim has heard the prayer of the prideful penitents under their boulders and now he sees them more clearly, weighed down "as if during dreams." What?
It gets more confusing. Dante the poet interrupts the narrative to remind his readers of their duties (to his imagined penitents? what?). And then Virgil speaks without ever being given a dialogue clue, further disorienting COMEDY's readers.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this strange passage from PURGATORIO.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:05] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 25 - 45. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:55] Three curiosities in the passage from the medieval Florentine, plus one thematic tie back to Canto X.
[10:41] For whom are the prideful penitents praying? And what exactly are they praying for them?
[16:18] The poet's lesson, inserted into the ongoing story, is disconcertingly awkward.
[21:36] Virgil offers nine lines of dialogue without a cue to us know it's Virgil who's speaking until almost the end--more disorientation.
[27:19] The passage ultimately connects to a medieval notion of art by its reference to the weight of dreams.
[29:35] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 25 - 45.
-
Please support this podcast! Help me with streaming, hosting, licensing, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here.
Dante now hears the first of the penitents of Purgatory proper. They're under their boulders, reciting the foundational of Christianity.
Except they're not. They're reciting Dante's rewrite of that prayer.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this curious passage that opens PURGATORIO, Canto XI, in which our poet has the sheer bravado to rewrite the most important prayer in the Christian tradition.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:55] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XI, lines 1 - 24. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:06] Initial comments about the prayer from the prideful penitents on the first terrace of Purgatory proper.
[09:25] The original statement of the prayer from Matthew 6: 9 - 13 versus Dante's rewrite of it.
[12:55] Dante's additions to this foundational prayer.
[21:39] The controversies Dante writes into this foundational prayer.
[32:29] Two interpretive questions. One, why does Dante feel free to rewrite a ritualized prayer, part of the liturgy itself?
[35:45] Two, what is Dante's ultimate poetic theory? That sacred space creates metaphoric/poetic space which then creates actual/physical reality.
-
Please consider supporting this podcast by donating to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and editing fees, as well as royalties for the sound effects, by visiting this PayPal link right here.
Virgil has prompted the pilgrim Dante to look at the penitents coming around the bend on the first terrace of Purgatory proper. But Dante can't make them out . . . until the poet intervenes with an invective and the envisions these penitents as works of art.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the hall of mirrors that Dante's theory of art is becoming even on the first terrace of PURGATORIO.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:31] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 112 - 139. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:00] The prophetic denunciation in the center of the passage hopes for a collective redemption out of individual sin.
[10:08] Dante's and Virgil's eyesights are first compromised so that they can't comprehend what they see.
[12:30] Art's power to interpret the realities of what is seen leads to Dante's hall of mirrors in which art is interpreting the real while being based on the real.
[18:01] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 112 - 139.
-
Help support this podcast by donating at this PayPal link right here.
Having seen the intaglios, Dante is still in wonder as the first penitents round the bend. Virgil spots them first . . . and murmurs to Dante.
Murmurs? It’s a loaded verb in a passage about Dante’s theory of art.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take on this short passage in PURGATORIO, Canto X, a passage that seams the canto together . . . or perhaps reveals its stitching.
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[02:07] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 94 - 111. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[04:18] This passage is a seam in the narrative, an important break in its structure.
[06:50] In Dante's theory of art, only God can create something out of nothing.
[08:21] Only in retrospect do we know what the intaglios were about. Or do we?
[10:00] Dante is writing ekphrastic poetry (poetry about a piece of visual art) about art that doesn't exist except in his own imaginative landscape.
[12:28] Several possible answers to the complicated question of Virgil's murmuring in this scene.
[18:08] Dante's third address to the reader in PURGATORIO may exhibit a hesitation or even an insecurity in the narrative.
[23:12] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 94 - 111.
-
Please consider helping to support WALKING WITH DANTE. You can help me cover streaming, licensing, royalty, hosting, and editing fees by donating whatever you can at this PayPal link right here.
Dante goes on to find the last intaglio or relief carving in the austere, too-steep, marble wall of the first terrace of Purgatory. Here, he finds a scene between the Roman emperor Trajan and a sorrowing mother who demands justice.
Demands it so much, in fact, that she and Trajan have a dramatized conversation, although they're carved into marble. Eagles soar. Knights tramp the ground. What's Dante up to?
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Dante the poet push the claims of realism to the breaking point to end at the moral crux of all of PURGATORIO: How do you balance justice and compassion?
Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:14] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 70 - 93. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.
[03:07] The first major players in the passage: the Roman emperor Trajan and the widow at his horse's bridle.
[05:19] The third major player in the passage: Pope Gregory the Great.
[07:21] Trajan is named outright, although other reliefs use periphrastic phrasing to identify the characters in the marble. Is that difference important?
[10:30] The passage picks up and alters the vendetta thematics from INFERNO.
[13:01] The woman at Trajan's horse's bridle seems a middle ground between the submissive Virgin Mary and the haughty Michal: an actionable humility.
[15:56] An interpretive question about the difference between history and story (or "istoria" and "storiata," to use Dante's words).
[18:53] Mimetic (realistic) art relies on imagined details to bolster and enhance the realism claims.
[23:45] The moral crux of Purgatory is the balance between justice and compassion.
[25:36] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 70 - 93.
- Show more
