On the Second Terrace we’ll meet the souls who are repenting for Envy, metaphorically with their eyes sewn shut by Iron Threads. The offsetting Virtues are here Love/Charity and Generosity, and Virgil has a long speech on both the sources of Envy, and the multiplying effects of having values of Spiritual Good more than the Earthly. The healing effects of the Climb continues as the Pilgrim now only has five of the seven scars left on his forehead, as they reach the next Terrace.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

The First Level of Purgatory is the Terrace of Pride, where the souls are carrying heavy stone slabs on their backs to apprehend a new sense of Humility towards the limitations of human nature and the rational Intellect. This was Dante the Writer’s own main Vice in life, and we’ll first get three examples of Humility from the Biblical Stories and Roman History, as the Virtue to offset and balance the Pride. An implied theme here is also that the Vice of Pride is underlying and amplifying all the other Vices further up the Mountain.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

In chapter 9 we’ve reached the Gate of Purgatory, and the threshold to the Terraces in the Purgatory Proper. The Pilgrim has first fallen asleep and had a prophetic dream about an Eagle lifting him up to the consuming Fire, and then learns that St. Lucia carried him up to the Gate in his sleep. Symbolically this chapter is a movement into a deeper and more spiritual part of the Climb, and the slowness of Ante-Purgatory is now left behind us.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

In chapter 8 of the Purgatory we’ll see the scene of the Two Angels and the Serpent, playing out an eternal battle between the forces of vices and the virtues. The Pilgrim also discovers three new Guiding Lights in the emerging night skies – the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love/Charity. In a deeper sense this chapter starts the transition from the more Earthly Ante-Purgatory to the more theologically layered experience of the Terraces of Purgatory.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

In this episode we’ll cover chapter 5-7 in the Ante-Purgatory, where the Pilgrim and Virgil meet Sordello, as a new Guide who is a Roman Poet but also had Faith and is among the saved souls. There is also an incredible beauty as they enter the Valley of Princes, with the fourth group of souls, and they have to stop as the first day is coming to end, in the dusk and twilight.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

The fourth Canto is in many ways the real beginning of the Climb, and one that gives us a new understanding both of orientation (and re-orientation), and the nature of a major learning process – metaphorically climbing the Mountain. And we’ll meet Belaqua, an old indolent friend of Dante the Writer. The late repentants who are indolent have to wait the same amount of years as they postponed their “Metanoia” and changing their minds.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

The third chapter is a lighter canto, and describes the transition from the Beach to the Mountain across the fields. Main symbolic theme is the role and limitation of Reason, both as the foundation and crucial for the Climb, but also its limitations. This topic will be increasingly clear through the book – until the Crowning moment after the Seven Terraces.

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

In this second episdode we’ll meet the Angelic Boatman arriving at the shores of Mount Purgatory, and see the symbolism of both the Boatman  and the role of Cato as the Guardian of the Mountain and Growth.

Overall this is a chapter of beauty, renewal and rebirth. 

Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424

Welcome to this first episode of the Purgatory Series!

We’ll talk about the symbolism of the first chapter but also the  bigger context and framing of the book and the Comedy as a whole. Enjoy!

Recommended version for joining this series is Mark Musa’s Penguin Classics Edition here: https://amzn.com/0140444424