Walking With Dante

Beatrice finishes her first indictment of Dante by showing him the fit subject matter for his abundant talent: her and the damned. She accuses him of chasing after false images, then of discounting her own inspiration in dreams. She ends with her final hope: to descend to the doorway of the dead and get the pilgrim started across the known universe. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the fina...

Beatrice is now fully in charge . . . so much so that she can even tell the angels in the chariot with her what they can't understand. She launches into her first indictment of the pilgrim, Dante. Here, she claims that he hasn't fulfilled his talent. He hasn't? With so much of COMEDY behind us? And what if then the point of this journey? Is it poetic craft or personal redemption? Join me, Mark Sca...

Beatrice has offered her first condemnation of Dante, just as his salve and mentor, Virgil, has left the scene. He's stuck across Lethe with the ice sheet encasing his heart. Even the angels surrounding Beatrice in the chariot seem dumbfounded by her vitriol and offer the pilgrim a psalm of consolation . . . which finally makes the ice that has surrounded his heart melt. He ends up wailing. Join m...

We finally hear the first words from Beatrice's mouth. (We've heard her before but as told by Virgil in INFERNO, Canto II.) She is certainly not person we expected. She's the admiral controlling her ship. She names the pilgrim, names herself, and gets very close to blasphemy in a passage that defies our expectations, about as revelation should. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the moment that Beatric...

The parade of revelation has stopped and everything holds its breath for what comes next. She's veiled, behind scattered flowers. But Beatrice arrives, in the place of Jesus Christ, her second coming, her advent in the victory chariot. And as she arrives, Virgil disappears from COMEDY. (Statius, too, even if he's still standing next to the pilgrim.) This moment is perhaps the climax of the poem as...

The grand parade of revelation has come to a stop across Lethe from our pilgrim, Virgil, and Statius. Everything seems to hold its breath: the constellations stop moving, the crowd goes quiet, one voice calls out for the bride, then a hundred angels appear, calling out for the groom . . . which is surely Jesus, right? We seem to be on the verge of a celestial marriage ceremony, the mystic union of...

As we have done throughout PURGATORIO, let's read through a chunk of the canticle to get the plot down so that we can then focus on the many moving parts that comprise it. Here are cantos XXX and XXXI, in many ways the climax of the first part of COMEDY: the arrival of Beatrice, long awaited since INFERNO, Canto II. Her arrival is like nothing we can expect. In fact, it's her second coming . . . l...

The pilgrim has found the perfect perch to see the full scope and length of the parade of allegories at the top of the Mount Purgatory in the garden of Eden. After the griffin and its chariot come seven merry women and seven more somber men. They are complex allegories that have inspired much debate. More than that, they are also an atemporal moment, something outside of chronological time, the wa...

The parade goes on to include a Roman, two-wheeled, victory chariot between the four animals. It's a brilliant moment, a chariot better than even famous Roman conquerors got, pulled by a griffin, a legendary two-natured creature . . . yet with a curious moment of emptiness right in all of the victory. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue deeper into the allegory of the parade of revelation at...

The parade goes on, now that the pilgrim, Dante, is in a good spot to see it. After the twenty-four lords in white come four animals with green fronds as crowns. They are like the Cherubim in both the prophecies of Ezekiel and in the Apocalypse of St. John (or the book of Revelation). Except not really. Or sort of. Well, the poet doesn't have time to explain. Go read the text yourself. And especia...

The parade goes on! Our pilgrim, Dante, turns back from Virgil's amazement and finds more of the parade coming toward him . . . at least, he does so after he's reprimanded by the lady who stands across Lethe. In this passage, the poet's craft heightens to reveal gorgeous poetry that comes from the apocalyptic tradition but far exceeds its beauty with both the Easter eggs Dante puts in the text and...

As the pilgrim, his poets, and the beautiful lady continue to stand beside Lethe, they see the approaching parade of the apocalypse, which is an example of emergent revelation, the truth coming in slowly and even deceptively. Our poet has set up a poetic space that leaves even Virgil speechless as we witness the first of the parade of multiple, open-ended meanings proliferate in the Garden of Eden...

Our pilgrim, Dante, and the beautiful lady across Lethe walk on for a bit before the stream bends and the pilgrim ends up facing the right way to see the first flash of light that will signal the great apocalyptic parade in Eden. The opening of PURGATORIO, Canto XXIX, brings us back to the pastoral world of Guido Cavalcanti's poem before launching us into allegory, theology, morality, and even mis...

The beautiful lady winds up her discourse with a corollary that combines both revelation and reason to offer a fulcrum to COMEDY as a whole: The classical world dreamed of Eden. Redemption is a cul-de-sac, returning us to our primal state while also offering us a way to remain readers of the classical world's poetry. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the end of the lady's discourse, the long...

The lady across the stream continues her answer to the pilgrim Dante's question about the breeze and the water. In this case, she explains the ecology of Eden, offers an understanding of global botany, and finally layers the meaning thick over the rivers of Eden, one of which is the poet's utter invention. The landscape itself is becoming allegorical, moral, theological, even anagogical, all while...

The lady in Eden says she's come to answer the pilgrim's questions. And he's got one. It just might not be the first question on our minds. But it's one that reveals the hall of mirrors that the poet has created in COMEDY, in which the poem itself justifies its own fictional if scientific answers to questions that lead the fictional pilgrim (and the very real reader) to a position of faith, based...

The lady in the forest has come to face the pilgrim and his poets across the stream in the forest. The pilgrim clearly feels a sexual attraction toward her, one that might even make us think of his reactions to Beatrice. She, however, has other ideas, like answering their many questions. Except in so doing, she raises even more questions than she has time to answer. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we...

Our pilgrim, Dante, calls the solitary lady over to him. She can't cross the stream that divides them, but she can dance in place before coming closer to him. All the while, the poet keeps darkening the poetry around her with threatening references in the pilgrim's mouth--that is, classical examples of profane love that end up in tragic circumstances. And all this, despite our poet quoting repeate...

Our pilgrim continues walking through the old-growth forest, so dark that very little light can get into its cooling shade. He is eventually blocked by two seemingly small things: a little brook flowing to the left and a solitary lady across the way, singing and picking flowers. But the poet Dante gives us hints that all is already not what it seems. Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we continue our jo...

Our pilgrim has been set free--crowned and mitered, in fact--and can wander at will through the dense, thick wood that tops Mount Purgatory. The opening lines of Canto XXVIII are fully from the pilgrim's point of view. They offer us a wealth of naturalistic detail that looks simple on first blush but that will get layered with sedimentary meaning over the next five and a half cantos. This place is...

We've come to the top of Mount Purgatory, on the other side of the globe from Jerusalem and the closest earth ever comes to the heavens above. Our pilgrim, Dante, begins to wander around in this new place, almost unprecedented in the poem (except for perhaps that hill and those three beasts back in INFERNO, Canto I). This episode of WALKING WITH DANTE is a read-through of the first two cantos (of...

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 ow...

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, M...

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...

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 throu...