Dante, Aquinas, Aristotle, And The Fences Of Truth

Dante and Virgil make haste across the second terrace of Purgatory before they're accosted by disembodied voices, calling them to the banquet of love.Sounds great, right? Except there's so much alienation in the landscape and even in the poetry.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take our first steps onto the second terrace of PURGATORIO with Dante and Virgil.Please consider helping to support this podcast with a donation to cover all the various fees associated with streaming, licensing, recording, editing, and hosting. You can do so at this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:19] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 22 - 45. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation, please visit my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:54] Three disembodied voices on the second terrace of PURGATORIO: quotes from the Virgin Mary, Orestes (maybe?), and Jesus.[13:25] Voices moving from the left, not right![15:26] Envy: a root sin, sometimes seen as the primary sin, even by Dante.[18:59] The schematics of Purgatory, as intuited by Virgil.[22:03] Disembodied voices and the problem of alienation.[26:28] The distance (and alienation) between Dante and Virgil.[32:36] A rereading of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 22 - 45.

Dante the pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, have arrived at the second terrace of Purgatory proper. As readers, we're not even sure what this terrace is about, although we can infer there must be more penitents ahead.Instead, Dante the poet offers us rather straightforward, naturalistic details, a complex neologism (a new word he coined), a crazy line that has many interpretations possible, and then a pagan prayer in the afterlife of the redeemed.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we walk into the second terrace and immediately stumble over what at first glance looks like a fairly simple passage. That's why we're slow-walking across Dante's known universe!If you'd like to help support this podcast by donating to cover hosting, streaming, website, licensing, and royalty fees, please consider visiting this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:09] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 1- 21. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:22] The naturalistic, straightforward details complete with a surprising neologism (or newly coined word).[08:12] A deeply ambiguous line smack in the middle of rather simple details.[12:02] Virgil's haste and his internalization of Cato's ethic, as well as Dante's increasingly complicated relationship with the old poet.[15:29] Virgil's pagan prayer to the sun.[23:40] My take: Virgil, the pagan, makes a full appearance here on the second terrace of Purgatory.[29:02] Virgil, blinded.[31:42] A rereading of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 1 - 21.

Before we step onto PURGATORIO's terrace of envy, the second ledge of Purgatory proper, let's pause a moment to talk about the relationship among Dante, Aquinas, and Aristotle.We have to take this detour because Dante will increasingly incorporate scientific reasoning into his poem, changing its very nature, based on his understanding of Aristotle, which is in turn based on the work of Islamic and Jewish scholars from the Iberian caliphates.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at this complicated history of thought and how it finally lands in COMEDY.Please consider donating to WALKING WITH DANTE to help me cover the licensing, hosting, domain, royalty, streaming, and editing fees of this podcast. You can do so by visiting this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:46] The collapse of the Umayyad caliphate and the inception of the Iberian schools of learning.[07:33] The discomfort with Aristotle at the University of Paris.[14:33] Classical Greek leaning and the disruption and/or incorporation into medieval Christianity.[17:30] If God is the author of all truth, then how does any truth whatsoever show up in the works of a pagan philosopher?[21:10] How does inductive truth make any sense in a deductive religion?[25:38] COMEDY is changing from an allegorical journey of a soul across the known universe to a poetic compendium of known truth.

We've come with Dante the pilgrim and Virgil, his guide, to the second terrace of Purgatory, the terrace of envy.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for this initial read-through of the terrace, beginning at the first line of PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, and extending to line 84 of PURGATORIO, Canto XV.If you'd like to help support this podcast, please consider donating whatever you can to help me cover licensing, hosting, streaming, and web fees by visiting this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:54] A read-through of the second terrace of Purgatory proper: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Line 1, through Canto XV, Line 84.[24:37] Initial questions for the terrace of envy.

Dante the pilgrim and Virgil have a little ways to go before they finally exit the terrace of pride. In fact, Dante has to come to a surprising revelation: It's getting easier. And Virgil has to explain why: Desire is being purified. How? By erasing what God has written.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look at the interpretive dilemmas and philosophical quagmires of the final moments on the terrace of pride, the first of the terraces of Purgatory proper in Dante's PURGATORIO.If you'd like to help support this podcast and help cover its stream, licensing, web-hosting, and royalty fees, please consider donating at this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:12] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 118 - 139. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:36] The climb in hell and in Purgatory both involve the notion of a throat.[06:44] Pride is the primary sin and delight is the primary motivation forward. But has it always been this way in COMEDY?[12:57] Canto XII ends on a light-hearted note . . . perhaps for poetic reasons.[16:32] First hard question: Is Dante the pilgrim truly expunged of pride?[19:51] Second hard question: Has Dante the poet moved the fence of his world to include himself in his own schematics?[24:56] Third hard question: Why does God's writing have to be erased?[30:53] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 118 - 139.

Dante and Virgil begin their climb from the first to the second terrace of Purgatory but as they do, they climb up in an incredibly contorted and difficult simile that swaps around emotional landscapes before landing them in the song of Jesus's beatitudes as well as the screams of hell.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the climb out in this most difficult simile.Please consider contributing to underwrite the many fees associated with this otherwise unsponsored podcast. To do so, visit this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 100 - 117. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.[03:18] The giant simile about the staircase up to San Miniato al Monte and to the second terrace of Purgatory.[08:50] Four reasons why this simile is so difficult (and perhaps contorted).[13:29] The body/soul problem once again that ends with the first of the beatitudes.[15:50] The inescapable landscape of hell.[19:23] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 100 - 117.

Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory.If you'd like to help out, please consider donating to keep this podcast afloat. You can do at this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[02:22] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.[04:47] Virgil returns to being Virgil: a guide to the afterlife who quote himself.[08:08] Virgil and the angel both seem to set the plot in motion again.[11:19] Virgil seems more interested in what's ahead and less interested in the reliefs and carvings. In fact, he seems to mistake the lesson from those carvings: Some days, like Trajan's, happen again and again in an eternal art form.[14:08] The strength of COMEDY is that the complex always resolves into the simple.[16:17] Irony: Virgil's "simple" ethic contains a Dantean neologism.[17:20] The beautiful angel contains an implicit and perhaps redemptive reference to Lucifer (or Satan).[21:11] Who speaks the condemnation against humanity? The angel or Dante the poet?[25:54] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99.

Dante the poet adds a coda to his (fake) ekphrastic poetry on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. He steps back and explains the very nature of the art to us: realer than real, as it were. Then he moves the passage out from its narrative base and into a moral lesson based on an allegorical (and anagogical) reading of his masterwork, COMEDY.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the last passage on the theory of art for this terrace of PURGATORIO.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:29] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 64 - 72.[02:40] Dante seems to double down on the artistic claims of the terrace of pride.[05:52] Dante reminds us that we're reading an allegorical (and anagogical) poem.[10:16] Humans create their moral truths by telling lies.[16:21] Rereading the passage: Purgatorio, Canto XII, lines 64 - 72.

We've spent three episodes going over the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride on Mount Purgatory. Now let's step back and look at the whole passage. Yes, its sweet. But also its curiously crafted problems. And the way it leaves us with more questions than answers, even though we're supposed to take away a very distinct moral lesson.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we run through this entire complicated passage in PURGATORIO.If you'd like to help out with the many costs associated with this podcast, please consider donating through this PayPal link right here.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:12] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 22 - 63. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.[04:18] Biblical, classical, and historical figures flatten the interpretive landscape. Is Ovid of an equal weight to the Bible?[06:33] The passage is an acrostic poem: each tercet starts with a specific letter, here to spell out "man." But does that rhetorical technique actually work for this passage? Are these all "men"? Or even humans?[10:05] The tercets are thematically in sets of four: the judgment of God, of the self, and of others. Again, doesn't that flatten the moral landscape?[12:46] Do the penitents have to be this learned to glean the intended lesson? And is this the sum total of the reliefs on the terrace? Or are there more?[15:13] How can you be guilty of pride against or toward a God you don't know?[18:12] Where do these figures fit in hell? And while we're at it, where does pride fit in hell?[21:29] Why does this passage end with Troy, the noble city?[22:53] Why is this fake ekphrastic poetry?

We've come to the last four reliefs in the paving stones of the terrace of pride. We're almost on our way to the next terrace of Purgatory . . . but not quite. Dante the pilgrim has to pay attention to these final moments, the final exemplars, some of whom are stated outright in the carvings and some of whom are strangely occluded.Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look through this last passage on the reliefs in the road bed. There are still plenty of surprises under our feet!Please consider donating to help me cover licensing, streaming, hosting, web domain, and other fees associated with this unsponsored podcast. If you'd like to make a contribution, you can do so at this PayPal link.Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:24] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 49 - 60. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please visit my website, markscarbrough.com.[02:42] The final figures in the hard pavement: Alcmeon (and Eriphyle), Sennacherib, Tomyris (and Cyrus), and Holofernes (and Judith).[11:16] The craft of the passage: children killing their parents v. women killing warlords, sacred spaces v. profane/political slaughter, occluded v. presented figures.[15:41] Curiosities in the passage: the unnamed figures, the allegory of the hard pavement, the connection between Sennacherib and Satan, and the odd notion of Holofernes' "relics."[21:24] Our final discussion on the virtue of humility: its possible evolutionary necessity for a communal animal.