PURGATORIO, Episode 59. Ecstatic While Longing For Home: PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, Lines 1 - 18

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We move closer to the rulers in the dale on the slope of Mount Purgatory before the main gate.

Here, we encounter longing, yearning, dreaming, sadness, all at the dying day, even as someone is already anticipating sunrise (and resurrection?).

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore one of the most beautiful passages in all of Dante's COMEDY: human, intimate, and cosmic, all the intersections we expect of this great poet.

Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[02:19] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, lines 1 - 18. If you'd like to read long or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[04:47] The opening pseudo-simile about sailors and pilgrims.

[08:27] The opening lines move us out of canonical time and into common time, leaving us with a yearning for what was.

[11:32] The irony of sight in a darkening landscape.

[12:43] An unknown soul and the importance of the east.

[15:58] The compline hymn "Te Lucis Ante."

[19:02] The third hymn of PURGATORIO.

[20:58] The divided self and the ecstatic experience.

[24:53] A glimpse of where we're headed.

[26:29] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, lines 1 - 18.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto VIII, Lines 1 – 18

It was already the hour that turns the desire

Of sailors homeward and melts their hearts

Even on the very day they say “adieu” to their sweet friends,

And [the time] that pricks the new pilgrim’s heart

With love, especially if he or she hears a far-off bell

That seems to cry out in sorrow for the dying day.

I started to rely less on my hearing

And instead focus my eyes on one of the souls

Who rose up and gestured with his hand for us to pay attention.

He joined his palms and lifted them up,

Fixing his eyes onto the east,

As if he were saying to God, “I don’t care about anything else.”

The hymn “Te lucis ante” came out of his mouth with such devotion

And with such sweet notes as well

That I from me was made to move away as if in ecstasy.

Then so sweetly and devotedly, the others

Followed him all the way through the rest of that song,

Keeping their eyes fixed on this wheeling heavens above.