More Questions Than Answers About The Reliefs In The Road Bed Of Pride: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 22 - 63

We've spent three episodes going over the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. Now let's step back and look at the whole passage. Yes, its sweet. But also its curiously crafted problems. And the way it leaves us with more questions than answers, even though we're supposed to take away a very distinct moral lesson.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run through this entire complicated passage in PURGATORIO.

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

[01:12] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 22 - 63. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.

[04:18] Biblical, classical, and historical figures flatten the interpretive landscape. Is Ovid of an equal weight to the Bible?

[06:33] The passage is an acrostic poem: each tercet starts with a specific letter, here to spell out "man." But does that rhetorical technique actually work for this passage? Are these all "men"? Or even humans?

[10:05] The tercets are thematically in sets of four: the judgment of God, of the self, and of others. Again, doesn't that flatten the moral landscape?

[12:46] Do the penitents have to be this learned to glean the intended lesson? And is this the sum total of the reliefs on the terrace? Or are there more?

[15:13] How can you be guilty of pride against or toward a God you don't know?

[18:12] Where do these figures fit in hell? And while we're at it, where does pride fit in hell?

[21:29] Why does this passage end with Troy, the noble city?

[22:53] Why is this fake ekphrastic poetry?