We have come to the climax of Virgil's in COMEDY: the apex of his character, the moment when he is what he should have been all along, a poignant and fitting summit for this most difficult figure in the poem.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we stand at the top of the final staircase on Mount Purgatory and take our first steps into the Garden of Eden with the pilgrim who is ready to continue on his own, with crown and miter in hand, thanks all to Virgil, the best guide he could have had.

Please consider supporting this work 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:

[02:11] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 124 - 142. 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.

[04:45] The climax of Virgil's natural talent and learned skill for the soul's journey across the known universe.

[14:19] Our first glimpse at the top of Mount Purgatory beyond the stairs.

[17:50] The entrance to the Garden of Eden--and a theological problem about Satan.

[21:27] The pilgrim, with crown and miter from Virgil.

[30:24] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 124 - 142.

We come to the climax of Virgil's character in the poem, the end of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII. Let's take this dramatic and chilling scene in two episodes, starting with the moment our pilgrim, Dante, wakes up from his third dream on the mountain.

Virgil steps forward to offer a grand and perhaps new hope. The journey is not about the need for justice. It's now about the search for peace.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this first of two passages where Virgil's character reaches its most accurate and compelling focus.

Please support this work 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:

[02:26] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 109 -123. 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.

[03:58] Callbacks from previous passages in PURGATORIO as this one begins to wrap up the canticle so far.

[12:14] Omitting the erasure of the final "P" on the pilgrim's forehead.

[13:37] The only calm awakening from a dream in PURGATORIO.

[15:44] Virgil, finally and fully the father-guide the pilgrim has always needed.

[23:51] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 109 - 123.

Our pilgrim has lain down on a step of the final staircase of Mount Purgatory, positioned between Statius below and Virgil above him.

As he watches the large and bright stars, he suddenly falls asleep to dream of Leah (and her sister Rachel) in an Edenic garden, the hope for self-reflection bound up in the promise of the contemplative life.

This dream may well begin to sum up Dante's notion of how a human finds the divine.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk through the final dream of PURGATORIO.

Consider donating to keep this work afloat by using this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:29] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 91 - 108. 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.

[03:05] The players around and in the dream: Cytherea, Leah, and Rachel.

[10:40] Three interpretations of the dream. One, a pre-fall Even and a post-redemption Eve in the Garden of Eden.

[12:50] Two, a Biblical dream after two classical dreams, but all deeply sexual in nature.

[17:26] Three, two modes for revelation: the active life and the contemplative life.

[19:03] Dantean psychology: finding the divine in the beloved leads to finding the divine in the self.

[23:22] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 91 - 108.

Our pilgrim has entered the flames of lust. For the first time, he is not a voyeur of the torments. He experiences them on the last terrace of lust.

He then hears a call to enter Paradise . . . before he falls asleep on the mountain's rocky staircase.

Problem is, those flames don't burn up irony. It's thick in this passage. A goat even gets into Paradise!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through this final climb on Mount Purgatory before we enter the Garden of Eden.

Consider supporting 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:

[01:22] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 49 - 90. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me about this passage, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:09] Dante's guilt (or creative apex) and Virgil's white lie (or painful memory).

[10:02] The angel in Latin and in vernacular Florentine--and perhaps Dante's homesickness.

[15:02] The scope of the journey: a half revolution around Mount Purgatory.

[18:14] The pastoral, idyllic, Edenic simile to (try to) summarize the moments after the flames.

[21:09] The irony in the simile, full of inaccurate reference points.

[25:28] Dante, the goat let loose into Paradise.

[29:29] Our poet, a world-builder.

[30:55] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 49 - 90.

Our pilgrim stands on the brink of the flames. Virgil has to use every rhetorical trick in his bag to get Dante to move . . . and the only thing that works in Beatrice.

In so doing, our poet Dante attempts his first run at defining this desire that is driving him up into the heavens. But he does so in a most curious way: by bringing up Geryon, the monster of fraud.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we stand with our pilgrim before the very real chance that the poem may catch on fire around us!

If you'd like to help with the many fees for this podcast, please do so at this PayPal link.

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

[01:26] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 19 - 48. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment so we can continue the conversation, please find the entry for this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:07] Virgil's tight rhetorical argument for getting in the flames.

[11:35] The beast of fraud and the problem of credence.

[15:47] The final push: Beatrice.

[18:12] Dante's first attempt to solve the problem of desire in his theological context.

[23:19] Our pilgrim, infantilized--and ready for the flames with an apple.

[26:02] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 19 - 48.

Our pilgrim has come to an impasse: the flames of lust. There's no way forward except to step into them. He must finally feel the sufferings that he has witnessed over the course of COMEDY to this point.

This suffering comes after a discussion of the craft of poetry, after a unifying vision of the world, and after Dante's own memories of both seeing people be burned alive as capital punishment and being sentenced to the same fate if he returns from exile.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we begin the first lines of the most important canto in PURGATORIO.

Consider supporting this podcast by offering a one-time donation or a small monthly stipend using this PayPal link.

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

[01:53] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 1 - 18. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please find this episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:52] The unifying, globalizing view to begin this transitional canto.

[08:36] The global, totalizing perspective v. the confusion of personal references in the passage.

[11:52] The difficulties of handling multiple perspectives in narratives.

[16:29] The global perspective v. Dante's personal memories and experience.

[24:00] The beatitude in the passage: "Blessed are the pure in heart."

[25:42] The beatitudes in all of PURGATORIO . . . and the missing one of the seven from the Gospel of Matthew.

[28:26] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVII, lines 1 - 18.

As we pass Arnaut Daniel, the last penitent soul of Mount Purgatory, let's look back over the discussions of poetry and lust in the seventh (and even sixth) terrace of the mountain.

Dante has laid out a fairly straightforward theory of poetry through his encounters with three poets. Are these in a logical progression? Are they causally linked, not just sequentially?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for some final thoughts (at least for now) about poetry, lust, and how we humans make meaning.

If you'd like to support this work, please consider donating through this PayPal link right here.

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

[01:50] A progression of poets: Forese Donati, Bonagiunta Orbicciani, and Guido Guinizzelli.

[07:20] Francesca was indeed an ambivalent figure in INFERNO--but not now, when we read through the gravitational lensing of COMEDY.

[12:56] Simone Weil claims that the hope of religion (or for her, Christianity) is to turn violence into suffering, which can then be interpreted.

Guido Guinizzelli has pointed to another figure in the purifying flames of Purgatory's seventh terrace. And now he steps forward, one of the greatest troubadour poets, a model of high-brow poetry and a writer of the sort of lusty verses that led to Francesca's downfall.

Arnaut Daniel breaks COMEDY in some ways. He speaks in (a version of) medieval Provençal. But he also gives the final triplicate rhyme by any penitent on the mountain--and these words sum up the action of poetry.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the final words from any penitent in PURGATORIO.

Support this work by using this PayPal link.

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

[01:32] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 136 - 148. 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.

[02:56] Lines in Provençal--that is, French poetry, the very thing that was a catalyst for Francesca's fatal choice.

[04:51] Ornate rhetoric that leads to one of the most renowned troubadour poets of the Middle Ages.

[09:02] The possibility of complex irony in Arnaut's speech.

[11:07] The final triplicate rhyme from any penitent in PURGATORIO: folly, power, sorrow.

[14:42] Refining: the action of penance.

[16:46] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 136 - 148.