Having met his poetic rival, Forese Donati, Dante the pilgrim must make sense of the clear and present pain he sees in friend's face.

This passage is a curious example of felix culpa, the fortunate fall, in which suffering must be reinterpreted for the greater good. Except the pain doesn't stop being the pain. Suffering remains the central metaphysical question of the human condition, the experiential crux underneath our high-minded notions of ontology.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this conversation between two poetic rivals on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory among the emaciated gluttons.

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

[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, lines 49 - 75. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:08] Best friends, still perhaps vain, still perhaps rivals.

[10:39] A power in the water and the tree--and an intense interpretive knot.

[14:56] The problem of hunger and thirst among disembodied souls.

[18:50] The interpretation of suffering as the crux of being human.

[26:15] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII, lines 49 - 75.