Walking With Dante9 Apr 2023

Lost And Found In Purgatory: PURGATORIO, Canto I, Lines 112 - 136

We come to the end of PURGATORIO, Canto I. Cato has disappeared. Virgil and Dante wander around (despite being told exactly what to do). And Dante the pilgrim discovers that he himself can still change in a world where everything else is fixed or permanent.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the final passage in the Canto I of Dante's PURGATORIO, the second third of his masterwork, COMEDY. The poem has so many surprises that it's hard to keep track!

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

[01:30] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto 1, Lines 112 - 136. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:37] Cato's appearance and disappearance is like Jesus's after the resurrection. And there may be other ways they're alike.

[06:19] "Follow my footsteps": a familiar emotional landscape for us readers and for the pilgrim Dante.

[06:47] There are two important moments of descent in COMEDY: one in Inferno I and the second in Purgatorio I.

[11:23] "The vibrations of the ocean": a call-out to THE AENEID, Book VII, lines 6 - 9. In other words, Virgil and his poetry are still our touchstone.

[13:04] Dante's complex emotional landscape: wandering around a bit lost when you're in the redeemed part of the afterlife.

[15:05] What exactly is Virgil's "craft"? Following Cato's directions?

[17:27] Dante the pilgrim is returned to a human state, not a state of innocence.

[19:58] Ulysses appears in Purgatory!

[21:45] In Dante's afterlife, all is permanent, except the pilgrim Dante.

[24:13] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto I, Lines 112 - 136.

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