Eyes Stitched Shut: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 46 - 72
Listen now
Description
The second terrace of PURGATORIO proves a wild ride into interiority, into the complicated sin of envy, and back into INFERNO. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first moments in which Dante sees the penitents ahead . . . and delays until the last moment revealing their fate: eyelids stitched shut with wires. Thank you for supporting this podcast through your donations. If you'd like to help our (or continue to help out) with all the fees associated with websites, hosting, streaming, editing, and sound effects, please visit this PayPal link right here. Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE: [00:55] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 46 - 72. If you'd like to read along or continue the discussion with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com. [03:28] Dante the pilgrim, the livid shades of the envious, and fragmentary prayers in the vernacular. [05:52] Compassion: apparently a virtue of enforced scarcity. [07:51] Envy, interiority, and externality. [09:42] The tried-and-true answers to envy: love, yes; but also uniformity. [13:25] The long wind-up to the revelation of the penitents' pain. [17:30] Dante's (false) etymology of envy and a folkloric explanation of the sin. [21:51] Two callbacks: 1) Provenzan Salvani and 2) the allegorical and/or naturalistic sun. [23:51] The biggest callback of all: to Pier della Vigna and Frederick II in INFERNO XIII. [25:21] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 46 - 72.
More Episodes
We've come to the middle of PURGATORIO . . . and indeed the middle of COMEDY as a whole. Let's take a breather and review where we've been in Purgatory since our very slow approach sometimes (or often?) causes us to privilege the trees over the forest. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as I walk you...
Published 11/20/24
Published 11/20/24
We come to the end of Virgil's (first) discourse on love, as well as the end of the central canto of PURGATORIO. But it's a strange end since Virgil admits to what he doesn't know. Having been so certain about how human behavior operates, he concludes by telling Dante the pilgrim he's on his own...
Published 11/17/24