Poets Make The Flames Of Lust More Colorful: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 1 - 24
Walking With Dante20 Elo 2025

Poets Make The Flames Of Lust More Colorful: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 1 - 24

The pilgrim, Dante, Virgil, and Statius walk on the narrow ledge between the flames of lust and the drop into the abyss. The penitents in the flames notice that the pilgrim's body makes the flames of lust more colorful . . . the work of any medieval poet in the troubadour tradition when it comes to love!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we encounter the first penitents in the flames of lust.

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

[02:26] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 1 - 24. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment on this passage to continue the conversation with me, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:17] Three comments on PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI as a whole: It provides the poet open space for much discussion, it is part of a larger mirroring with the three upper circles of INFERNO, and it is in direct conversation with both INFERNO, Canto XXVI, and INFERNO, Canto V.

[07:34] Virgil's offers only one line in this canto just before a bit of time-telling in the passage.

[11:50] The pilgrim doesn't have a "sham" or "fictitious" body on the terrace of lust.

[16:46] Near the flames of lust, we get a hint of the poet's expansive geographical knowledge.

[22:30] The passage may already be about the craft of poetry.

[25:24] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 1 - 24.

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