Walking With Dante

Guido Guinizzelli has named himself and our pilgrim, Dante, is aghast.

He gets lost in a classical simile that almost loses its sense, only to finally find his love for this poetic father and express himself in the straightfoward, new style from which his own poetry was born.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through another complicated but ultimately satisfying passage on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory among the lustful penitents.

Support this podcast by offering a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend through this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:22] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 94 - 114. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please find this episode's entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:21] Guido Guinizzelli substituted a philosophical ideal for feudal love.

[07:06] A ridiculously complex simile in the midst of a discussion of the sweet new style.

[11:18] Dante finds a father, perhaps one of the goals of COMEDY.

[13:06] The pilgrim backs off from homoeroticism with feudal pledges.

[15:50] Guinizzelli gets Dante's footprint that even Lethe won't wash away.

[17:24] Poetry may ironically offer a hint of its immortality in its materiality.

[21:47] Rereading PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 94 - 114.

We finally come to know who has been our spokesperson for the lustful penitents: Guido Guinizzelli, perhaps the most important Italian poet working before Dante.

Guinizzelli explains who the penitents are by using two classical allusions and even making up words to describe their sin, in the ways that poets always manipulate and even invent language.

This passage is a shocking example of Dante's changing notion of homosexuality. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through its rather high, ornate rhetoric to discover that in fact there's more fusion that just marriage, than two become one. In fact, our poet is fusing his poetry with Guinizzelli's.

Consider underwriting the many fees for this podcast with a one-time donation or a very small monthly stipend by using this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:52] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 67 - 93. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please find the comment section for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:10] Why are the mountaineer penitents gawking? What makes them feel rough and rugged?

[07:28] The pilgrim Dante receives a beatitude from another poet in the borderland that is Purgatory itself.

[09:14] Julius Caesar is slurred as "Queen."

[13:20] Heterosexuality is the fusion of male and female: "And the two shall become one."

[17:04] Guido Guinizzelli identifies himself, although he's been in the words of this passage all along.

[21:26] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 67 - 93.

We've seen the two crowds of the lustful on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory and we clearly identified them in the last passage (and on the last episode of this podcast).

But Dante the pilgrim didn't know who they were. He's stuck, confused. He then seeks to break out his manuscript and rule his paper to find his way into the shocking revelation that love in the body can exist in more than one form.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this small passage on the seventh terrace, sandwiched between the two big revelations and before the last major discussion of poetry on Mount Purgatory.

Please help underwrite the many fees of this podcast with a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend using this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:51] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 49 - 66. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me by dropping a comment on this episode, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:34] Reading and interpreting through the passage for its metaphoric, rhetorical, and thematic knots.

[14:58] One question from the passage: Why is the body so crucial to this discussion?

[17:03] A second question: What about this passage brings up the mechanics of writing?

[19:29] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 49 - 66.

Our pilgrim, Dante, may have opened his mouth to answer how he got to where he is in his corporeal body, but he's interrupted by something completely unexpected: a group of people, moving the opposite direction of everyone else on Mount Purgatory. He's witnessing the moment when love moves the fence. These are the homosexuals on the doorstep of heaven.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I work through the passage that was the inception of this entire podcast and is the best illustration of my thesis that love remakes the world.

To support this podcast and underwrite its many fees, please consider a one-time donation or small monthly stipend using this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:38] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 25 - 48. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation with me, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:32] The passage is an interruption of people (à la Cavalcante with Farinata) and of tenses: It moves consistently into the narrative present tense.

[05:22] The passage begins with an emphasis on identification and novelty.

[06:34] Moving to the left, rather than the right, the new penitents reenact a moment of Christian fellowship and of Francesca's downfall.

[09:48] The first revolutionary simile: ants who nuzzle each other.

[12:25] The penitents cry out to explain who they are.

[15:34] The second revolutionary simile: cranes who migrate in opposite directions.

[18:08] Dante may rewrite Jeremiah's prophecy.

[20:04] Dante definitely reclassifies homosexuality--which may offer even more explosive implications than he intends.

[25:28] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 25 - 48.

The pilgrim, Dante, Virgil, and Statius walk on the narrow ledge between the flames of lust and the drop into the abyss. The penitents in the flames notice that the pilgrim's body makes the flames of lust more colorful . . . the work of any medieval poet in the troubadour tradition when it comes to love!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we encounter the first penitents in the flames of lust.

To support this podcast with a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend, please use this PayPal link right here.

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

[02:26] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 1 - 24. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment on this passage to continue the conversation with me, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:17] Three comments on PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI as a whole: It provides the poet open space for much discussion, it is part of a larger mirroring with the three upper circles of INFERNO, and it is in direct conversation with both INFERNO, Canto XXVI, and INFERNO, Canto V.

[07:34] Virgil's offers only one line in this canto just before a bit of time-telling in the passage.

[11:50] The pilgrim doesn't have a "sham" or "fictitious" body on the terrace of lust.

[16:46] Near the flames of lust, we get a hint of the poet's expansive geographical knowledge.

[22:30] The passage may already be about the craft of poetry.

[25:24] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 1 - 24.

Dante, Statius, and Virgil arrive on the seventh terrace of Mount Purgatory filled with the flames of lust.

The pilgrim must make his precarious way between those burning fires and the abyss just to his right, a narrow path that may give us a clue to the poet's own fears of lust.

This passage is a grab-bag of ideas, hymns, references, and emotions. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore it more fully.

Please support this podcast with a one-time donation or a very small monthly stipend using this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:23] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 109 - 139. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me by dropping a comment on this episode, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:55] Three curiosities: a double meaning at line 109, the flaming geography, and the parallels in INFERNO, Canto XXV.

[08:13] Three surprising moments in the passage: a bit of humor, a glancing reference to an Aristotelean mean, and a direction connection with our poet.

[12:21] A hymn for chastity and a reference to Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego from Daniel 3.

[16:56] Three examples of chastity . . . except the third seems smudged or inaccurate.

[23:08] Penance as a medieval medical remedy.

[24:19] PURGATORIO, the most human canto, about human development and art, all connected to nature.

[26:21] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 109 - 139.

Statius concludes his discourse on embryology by finally answering the pilgrim Dante's question about how souls can take on material attributes in the afterlife . . . and by gently correcting both Virgil's incomplete answer to the question in this canto and Virgil's larger explanation of the soul's journey after death in THE AENEID.

This passage is justifiably complicated. Dante's imaginative and intellectual powers are on full display. It's easy to be lost in the details but there are wonders afoot, including the idea that there may be an allegorical reading of the passage that concerns the afterlife of a work of art.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we finish up Statius's discourse on the soul's material attributes in the afterlife before we ascend to the seventh and final terrace of Mount Purgatory.

To support this podcast: use this PayPal link.

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

[01:49] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 79 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me by dropping a comment on this episode, please find it on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:25] Statius fuses classical imagery (the fates) and Augustinian thought.

[10:02] The soul miraculously but of its own accord falls into the afterlife. Wait, what? And only now knows its path in the underworld?

[13:03] The formative power of the soul is intact after death.

[14:57] The afterlife soul is a fabrication of the air.

[16:52] Statius gently refines Virgil's unsatisfactory answers to the pilgrim Dante's question.

[18:28] The souls in the afterlife can enact their desires, just as they do in the world of the living.

[20:51] Statius also gently refines Virgil's discussion of souls in the afterlife in THE AENEID.

[24:24] Is this passage about the afterlife of poetry (or art), too?

[27:12] Rereading all of Statius's discourse: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 34 - 108.

Statius goes on to the second part of his discussion of human embryology by following the fetus through its developmental phases until it finally has a brain. At this point, the prime mover knows it's capable of reason and so breathes a new spirit into it . . . to make it capable of self-reflection.

This passage is astounding discourse on developmental embryology as understood by medievals via Aristotle but may also be a complex allegory for the creation of poetry.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work our way through the middle bits of Statius's discourse.

If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend. You can donate via this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:35] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 52 - 78. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me about this passage, please find the entry for this episode on my website: markscarbrough.com.

[04:37] Following the logic of Statius's discourse on embryology.

[19:46] Three conclusions about reproduction and human development via Statius (and the poet Dante).

[23:15] Embryology as an allegory for the craft of poetry.

[25:53] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 52 - 78.

Dante the pilgrim has asked the pressing question of how immaterial souls can take on material attributes like leanness.

To answer that, Virgil has offered a couple of unsatisfying answers, then turned the lecture over to the redeemed Statius . . . who begins by discussing human digestion. As understood via Aristotle, Aquinas, and more, food is purified into blood which then coagulates into a fetus.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the opening stanzas of Statius's remarkable and poetic description of human embryology. Dante is nothing if not surprising at every turn.

If you'd like to help support this podcast by underwriting its many fees, please consider a one-time donation or a very small monthly stipend, using this PayPal link right here.

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

[02:04] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 34 - 51. 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.

[04:13] Statius begins with two important words that signal the poetics of his lecture: "lume" ("light") at line 36 and "bello" ("beautiful") at line 43.

[07:48] Dante the poet cribs his understanding of digestion from several sources and sees digestion itself as the foundation of human reproduction.

[16:51] Reproduction begins as the mingling of female blood with purified, male blood.

[19:26] It then continues through coagulation and vivification.

[22:43] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 34 - 51.

Our pilgrim, Dante, has asked a very pressing question: How can shades grow thin? How does the immaterial act like the material in the afterlife?

Virgil has given the pilgrim the confidence to ask this question. So Virgil takes the first crack at an answer. Problem is, he offers a whole unsatisfying answer and then turns the discussion over to Statius.

This passage is a curious introduction to Statius's coming discourse on embryology. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the emotional vibe established before we get to the intellectual and doctrinal answer ahead.

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

[02:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 22 - 33. 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.

[04:19] Curiosities in the medieval Florentine in lines 22 - 27.

[06:33] Virgil's two inadequate answers to the pilgrim's question.

[13:11] The wound of the intellect and their relation to poetry.

[17:35] Statius and the limitations of Virgil.

[20:04] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, lines 22 - 33.