Walking With Dante

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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?

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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.

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[01:29] My English tr...

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.

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Some personal news . . . and not the sort I ever want to share . . . about future episodes of this podcast. I hope you'll understand.