PURGATORIO, Episode 239. Dante Faints For The Third Time In COMEDY: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXI, Lines 64 - 90

Beatrice has finished her case against the pilgim Dante. All that's left is for him to find his way beyond confession and into confession . . . which he does with a major crack-up that leads him to faint for the third time in COMEDY.

Before he collapses, the poem begins a series of inversions or reversals that both increase the ironic valences of the passage and give its reader an almost vertigo-inducing sense of Dante's emotional landscape.

A difficult passage in the Garden of Eden, here Beatrice accomplishes what she came for. Let’s explore the slow build-up to the final moment of contrition . . . which mimics the moment when Dante gives way in front of Francesca, back in INFERNO's circle of lust.

The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:20] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXI, Lines 64 - 90. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[04:15] Dante, from boy to man.

[07:26] Recognition, the key to the passage, to contrition, and a possible node of irony.

[10:38] The "unbearded" oak and the final crack-up.

[13:49] Iarbas and Dido v. Dante and the new Dido.

[16:28] Beatrice's venom.

[17:27] Dante's beard.

[20:00] The angels' departure?

[21:16] The meaning of the beast's two natures.

[23:53] Glossing the end of the passage: lines 82 - 90.

[27:57] Francesca and her physical seduction v. Beatrice and her physical-theological seduction.

[33:01] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXI, lines 64 - 90.

My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXI, Lines 64 – 90:

As young boys are silent [and] ashamed,

With their eyes fixed on the ground, listening

And recognizing themselves [for who they are] and repenting,

So I stood there. And she said, “Since you’re saddened

By what you hear, raise your beard

And you’ll get more pain by what you regard.”

A massive oak is uprooted

With less resistance—either by one of our native winds

Or one from the land of Iarbas—

Than was my chin raised at her command.

And when she called my face my beard,

I understood the venom in her reasoning.

When I lifted up my face,

My eye discerned that those first creatures

Had taken a break in scattering their flowers.

And my eyes, still a little unsure,

Saw Beatrice turned toward the beast

Who was solely one person in two natures.

Under her veil and across the river

She seemed to overtake even her former self,

Just as she overtook other women here, when she was over here.

The thorns of repentance so pricked me then

That all the other things that had turned me

Even a little toward their love were now despicable to me.

So much recognition chewed into my heart

That I fell down overcome—and what I then became

She knows who was the reason of my condition.