Walking With Dante

Statius and Virgil continue their conversation as they climb to the sixth terrace with the pilgrim Dante.

Statius explains that he discovered his error when he read two lines from Virgil's AENEID. The problem is that Statius misquotes these lines and misinterprets them, making them fit his personal situation while pushing them through Aristotle's ethics.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this wild passage that has inspired over...

Blinded by the angel, Dante the pilgrim begins his climb to the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory. But his plight is overshadowed by Virgil’s desire to know more about Statius . . . in this strange passage of misquotings and misreadings.

The angel cuts short a beatitude from the gospels. Virgil seems to misquote Francesca from INFERNO, Canto V. And Virgil himself seems to toss out Aristotle’s Golden Mean to get what he wants from Sta...

We have been a long time on the terrace of the avaricious (without knowing there's another sin punished there as well). We're ready to climb on up to the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory with Virgil and Statius as the pilgrim Dante's guide.

On this episode, sit back for a read-through of these three cantos.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I read a rough translation of PURGATORIO, Cantos XXII, XXIII, and XXIV, exploring the climb up from...

Statius has sung his (first!) hymn of praise to Virgil without knowing that the old poet is right in front of him. Dante the pilgrim is caught between them in this most human episode with his master, Virgil, demanding silence and his new friend, Statius, wanting to know why the pilgrim is smiling.

Which means Dante is also caught on his emotions which seem to be overriding his will . . . in a canto about the will's primacy.

Join me, ...

We finally get to know our unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Purgatory: Statius, the epic Roman poet.

His salvation is one of the most audacious moves in all of COMEDY. Dante has to work every fiction-making muscle he has to assert that this pagan poet has spend so long in Purgatory on his way to heaven . . . and finds himself face to face with Virgil, his poetic inspiration and apparently the carrier of God's revelation.

Join me...

The still-unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory rounds out his answer to Virgil's questions with some shocking revelations: The souls in Purgatory seem to declare the moment they're cleansed. The will is the only proof that their penance is complete. They stand up. They choose to move on.

Or do they? Is it that simple? Or theologically explosive? This passage is easy to overstate, particularly in the modern world. Bu...

Virgil has asked two questions: Why'd the mountain shake and why'd the shades all cry out with one voice?

The unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory begins his answer by referring to Aristotle's notions of change . . . and offers the surprising conclusion that some change is impossible about the three steps to the gate of Purgatory proper.

And then he does something wilder: He begins to wrap the poetic imagery of Canto...

The unknown shade has been gobsmacked by the fact that escapees from hell may be climbing Mount Purgatory.

Virgil explains that the pilgrim is still very much alive. To do so, Virgil uses classical, not Christian, imagery. And Virgil presses for an answer as to "why" the mountain just shook and "why" all the souls sang out with one voice.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore Virgil's curious answer to the unknown shades questions ...

Dante is left wondering why the mountain has shaken when an even deeper mystery occurs: a shade appears seemingly out of nowhere and behind our pilgrim and Virgil.

This shade offers a Christian greeting, Virgil returns it in a darker way, and then this shade assume he's looking at two damned shades, escaped from hell.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this most curious passage that begins one of the most fascinating cantos in a...

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have seemingly moved off even as Hugh Capet was still speaking. They're picking their way among the avaricious when they're stopped by an earthquake that rattles Mount Purgatory.

Dante is afraid. Virgil may even be afraid. But he tells the pilgrim to "fear not," much as those angels tell the shepherds at the birth of Jesus.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work our way through the end of PURGATORIO, Canto ...

Hugh Capet has spent a long time answering the pilgrim Dante's first question: who were you? He now turns to the pilgrim's second question: why did I only hear your voice on this terrace?

In doing so, Hugh begins to sing antiphonally . . . or at least, he begins to list off those who have been done in by avarice, the quickest and tightest list of figures in PURGATORIO.

Why is this list so full of figures yet so curt in its style? And...

As Hugh Capet winds up to the heights of his monologue, he comes to a most shocking climax: that moment when the French monarchy is so bad that it makes even the corrupt papacy look good.

We've come to the very center of Dante's beef with the French crown, voiced by this legendary monarch about his own descendants, particularly Philip IV (or Philip the Fair). It's a tale so dire that even papal corruption is forgotten!

Join me, Mark ...

Hugh Capet continues the story of his family, bringing the saga of the French (or Frankish) crown into Dante's day with three of Hugh's most infamous descendants . . . at least as far as the poet is concerned.

Our pilgrim gets treated to a grim recital of French misdeeds. And we catch our first whiff of antisemitism in COMEDY, just at the moment the actual French monarchy is expelling the Jews from French territory.

Join me, Mark Sca...

The pilgrim has been attracted by one soul, calling out his examples of Mary, Fabricius, and Nicholas to counter his own sins of avarice.

Dante steps closer and inquires who this soul is. He finds himself in front of Hugh Capet, the legendary (and historical) founder of the Capetian dynasty of French kings. Or at least a version of said Hugh Capet, since Dante the poet flubs the historicity of his penitent.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, ...

Dante has gone beyond Pope Adrian V but hasn't left the fifth terrace of Purgatory. He and Virgil pick their way among the many shades until the pilgrim hears one shade call out three examples that entice the pilgrim to find this penitent.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this passage on the terrace of the avaricious that will eventually lead us to our surprising second greedy soul ahead.

Here are the segments for this ep...

Pope Adrian V has pushed the pilgrim Dante to move on . . . even though the pilgrim doesn't want to.

He and Virgil pick their way through the crowded fifth terrace of Purgatory. The avaricious are so many that the poet has to step out and offer a prophetic denunciation among the wreckage.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we edge our way toward the second penitent on this crowded terrace of PURGATORIO.

Here are the segments for this episod...

Pope Adrian V concludes his discourse on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory on a strangely lonely, alienated note. Perhaps this is what avarice does to a person. Or perhaps this is what exile has done to Dante.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the end of PURGATORIO XIX and Pope Adrian's speech on the terrace of the avaricious. We end at a melacholy spot for one of the redeemed.

Here are the segments of this episode of W...

Pope Adrian V, bound hands and feet to the ground, sets out to answer the pilgrim Dante's second question: What's going on here?

In doing so, the pope unwittingly gives one of the most misunderstood lines in PURGATORIO.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore more of this conversation with the first (and only) pope we meet on Mount Purgatory.

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

[01:52] My English translation o...

Dante the pilgrim has asked Virgil--at least with a look in the eyes--if he could speak to one of the avaricious penitents, lying face down on the ground.

On Virgil's okay, the pilgrim walks up to Pope Adrian IV . . . or at least so Dante the poet thinks. Sources vary. And interpretations, too.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the interpretive and historical knots we face on meeting our first pope since INFERNO.

If you'd l...