Walking With Dante19 Nov 2025

Of Brooks, Solitary Ladies, and Layered Meanings: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVIII, Lines 22 - 42

Our pilgrim continues walking through the old-growth forest, so dark that very little light can get into its cooling shade.

He is eventually blocked by two seemingly small things: a little brook flowing to the left and a solitary lady across the way, singing and picking flowers.

But the poet Dante gives us hints that all is already not what it seems.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue our journey across the top of Mount Purgatory . . . and notice that meaning is becoming layered over the naturalist details our pilgrim innocently notices.

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

[01:07] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVIII, lines 22 - 42. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me by dropping a comment about this episode, please do so on my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:03] A glance back to the start of the canto . . . and a glance back to the start of INFERNO.

[05:59] More repeated words in the poetry.

[07:31] Naturalistic details and the initial layering of metaphysical, moral, or allegorical meaning.

[16:30] No geographical understanding of this place (yet) . . . but a literary understanding of it: pastoral poetry.

[22:48] The unnamed, solitary lady as an interpretive trap.

[24:57] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVIII, lines 22 - 42.

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