PURGATORIO, Episode 57. The Kings Who Dodged What They Should Have Done, Part One: PURGATORIO, Canto VII, Lines 82 - 136

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We finally get to see who is down in that beautiful dale in front of us on the lower slopes of Mount Purgatory--and it turns out to be a roster of rulers from the mid- to late-1200s.

These kings have mucked up the European landscape and left it in the mess that Dante finds it. They appear to be repenting their actions. But they were also excessively action-oriented figures, going to war with each other for dynastic and territorial control.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, for the first of two parts on the end of PURGATORIO, Canto VII. This passage is tough--so this first time through it, we'll just fill in the historical details before we turn to questions of interpretation in the next episode of WALKING WITH DANTE.

Here are the segments for this episode:

[01:46] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VII, lines 82 - 136. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[06:00] The passage again, this time glossed with all of its historical detail, a crash course in central and southern European politics of the mid- to late-1200s.

[23:44] The initial interpretive questions we should explore as we try to think through the problems this passage causes COMEDY as a whole and the ways it refocuses the poem Dante's growing political stance.

And here’s my English translation of the passage: Purgatorio, Canto VII, lines 82 - 136.

Purgatorio, Canto VII, Lines 82 – 136

I saw souls singing Salve Regina and seated

In the verdant grass and among the flowers.

These souls hadn’t been visible outside of that valley.

“Even before the last little bit of the sun heads for its nest,”

Began the Mantuan who’d led us there,

“Don’t ask me to walk down and be your guide among them.

“From this embankment you’ll know

Their characteristic gestures and faces,

Better than if you were down in the dale among them.

“The one sitting up highest, with the look of someone

Who dodged doing what he should have done

And whose mouth doesn’t move with the others in song,

“Was the Emperor Rudolph, who might have been able to

Salve the wounds that have brought death to Italy.

It’s really late for another to resurrect her.

“That guy, who has the look as if he’s comforting the emperor,

Ruled the land where the waters are born

That the Moldau takes to the Elba, and the Elba, on to the sea.

“His name was Ottokar and he was a better man in diapers

Than his bearded son Wenceslaus,

Who feeds on lust and indolence.

“The one with the nose that seems so narrow and is caught up

In discussions with the one with such a kindly face?

He died while fleeing—that is, while deflowering the lily.

“Check out how he beats his chest!

And look how that other one sighs even as he lets

His cheek rest in the palm of his hand.

“Those guys are the father and father-in-law of the plague of France.

They know his life of vice and wickedness,

Which is why grief seems to run them through like a lance.

“The one who’s so burly and tall, who’s singing along

With the guy with such a manly nose,

Was suited up with a cord of every honor.

“And if the one had succeeded him—

I mean, the young kid sitting behind him—

Then that worth would have been poured from one vessel to another.

“That sort of thing can’t be said of other heirs!

James and Frederick have their own kingdoms.

Neither possesses a better bloodline.

“Human worth rarely rises up branch by branch.

The One who bestows it does so on purpose,

So it must be asked of him.

“My words apply both to that big-nosed guy

And to the other one, that Peter, who sings with him

While Apulia and Provence are brought to such sorrow.

“In every way, the seed is inferior to the plant,

So that Constance may boast more about her husband

Than Beatrice or Margaret may of theirs.

“See the king of the simple life,

Sitting over there, that Henry of England.

His tree may well branch into better progeny.

“And lowest among them all, his eyes lifted up

As he sits on the ground, is William the Marchese,

Because of whom Alessandria and its war

Cause Monferrato And Canavese to cry out in sorrow.”