Love is the seed … of all you do. It's news to me, given the state of the world. But not to Virgil. And certainly not to Dante's COMEDY.

Virgil's explosive claim about love lies at the center of the poem: We do right and we go wrong because of the seed of love.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the beginning of Virgil's central discourse in COMEDY, an overwhelming statement about human motivation and the nature of God.

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

[01:43] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, lines 91 - 105. If you'd like to read along or continue the discussion with me, please find this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:57] Virgil's explosive claim: love is the seed of all human action.

[05:27] Virgil's scholastic divisions of love.

[08:38] A translation problem: "o naturale o d'anima."

[12:40] Virgil's understand of the two types of love.

[14:59] Virgil's odd repetition of his own argument.

[18:27] The basis of Dante's thought: the Bible, Aristotle, and Aquinas.

[27:27] Dante's source: William Perault's SUMMA DE VITIIS ET VIRTURTIBUS. (Ugh, my Latin pronunciation!)

[29:16] But what then of the fall in the Garden of Eden?

[30:59] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XVII, lines 91 - 105.