Astronomy = Geography = Morality: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, Lines 76 - 96

Dante the pilgrim continues to rest on the first small ledge that runs around Mount Purgatory. Here, he and Virgil first discuss astronomy--or why the sun is in on his left (or "wrong") in this hemisphere. Virgil seems to end the discussion (in the last episode of this podcast) with a sneer: "If you're smart enough to figure this out."

Indeed, the pilgrim is! In fact, he does Virgil one better. He summarizes the "science" far better than Virgil can. And Dante the pilgrim shifts the discussion to geography, which then Virgil oddly shifts to morality, one-upping the pilgrim to show who's really in charge.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this episode about a passage from PURGATORIO which is perhaps the crystallization of Dante's technique: misdirection as ultimately the way forward.

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

[01:27] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 76 - 96. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:14] Dante the pilgrim restates Virgil's argument about the sun's position. Except the pilgrim changes the argument a bit.

[06:41] Is there irony here? Dante the pilgrim is better able to explain the sun's position with a more straightforward restatement of the "science."

[08:16] Dante the pilgrim then shifts the discussion from astronomy to geography. Virgil, then, does him one better and shifts the discussion of geography to morality.

[11:21] Why does Virgil shift the discussion to moral allegory? Because of his wisdom? Or because of his limits?

[13:36] Virgil is forced to admit his ignorance and so takes another drubbing in a string of them in the early cantos of PURGATORIO.

[16:23] Rereading the entire sequence on the first small ledge of Mount Purgatory: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 52 - 96.