PURGATORIO, Episode 249. Apocalypse Even In Eden, Part One: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 109 - 160
Dante is now ready for the final apocalyptic vision of PURGATORIO . . . and in the last place we might expect it: in that bastion of innocence and purity, the Garden of Eden.
In seven vignettes, Dante witnesses some chaotic and catastrophic collapse of the chariot and even one of the original trees of Eden.
But all is not lost. Beatrice is on the scene. And Dante himself participates in this vision, seemingly instigating a new ending to what had become a disaster.
This is the first of two episodes on the grand apocalypse of Eden in PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII.
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The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:37] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 109 - 180. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.
[05:28] Thoughts on the almost surreal strangeness of the vision as it moves from the natural world to the monstrous.
[08:59] The structure of the vision: seven vignettes--five in six-line segments; the first and last scenes, longer.
[18:34] Echoes in the vision to other moments in COMEDY: eagles, a vixen, dragons, a prostitute, and giants.
[23:12] Biblical echoes from the Apocalypse of St. John at the end of Dante's vision.
[25:03] Two outside actors who enter the vision and fundamentally change it.
My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 109 – 160
Never has fire nosedived from such a thick cloud
[And] with so much speed—as if from the borderline
That moves at the greatest distance from us—
As I saw Jove’s bird fall, punching
Through the tree, ripping off its bark,
Not to speak about its blossoms and new leaves.
It hit the chariot with all its strength,
Making it churn like a ship in a hurricane,
Conquered by waves, now to the starboard, now to the port side.
Then I saw a vixen hurl itself
Into the cradle of the triumphal vehicle.
[That vixen] seemed to lack any nourishment for its own well-being.
But pushing back against its ugly guilt,
My lady spun it around and into the sort of flight
That its fleshless bones could handle.
Then I saw the eagle come down
From where it came the first time, right into the ark
Of the chariot, leaving it [now] as feathered as the bird itself.
And as comes from a grieving heart, such a voice
Issued forth from heaven and said,
“O my little ship, what bad freight you have!”
Then it seemed to me that the ground opened up
Between the two wheels. And I saw a dragon issue forth
And plunge its tail up into the chariot.
Like a wasp pulling out its sting,
Retracting its evil tail toward itself,
It dragged off some of the base and wandered away aimlessly aimlessly.
Like living earth covered with weeds, what remained
Of the [eagle’s] feathers (offered
Perhaps with clean and inoffensive intentions)
Covered [the chariot] completely, so that
One and the other wheel were covered, as well as the pole,
In less time than a sigh holds a mouth open.
Transformed in this way, the holy construction
Put out heads along its parts,
Three along the pole and one at each corner.
The first [three] were horned like oxen.
But the four others had a single horn on their foreheads.
A monster like this has never yet been seen.
Confident, like a fortress on a high mountain,
An unkempt whore appeared before me.
She sat up there, peering all around under her brow.
As if to prevent her from being taken away,
I saw a giant standing next to her.
They kissed each other at every turn.
But because she turned her greedy and wandering eye
On me, that feral lover
Beat her from head to feet.
Then full of suspicion and brutish anger,
He untied the monstrosity and dragged it all the way
Into the wood to make that place a shield against me
So that I couldn’t see the whore or this new beast.