The Moral Crux Of Justice And Compassion In The Last Intaglio: PURGATORIO, Canto X, Lines 70 - 93

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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.