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After Judge Nino's misogynistic diatribe, Dante the pilgrim stares at the stars. The original four from the opening of PURGATORIO have passed beyond his sight; three new stars are rising, when the long-awaited snake makes its appearance in the dale of the negligent rulers.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work to untangle the meaning in this curious and symbolic passage that cues us to much that's ahead in our walk across the known universe--and specifically, up Mount Purgatory.

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

[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, lines 85 - 108. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with a comment, please scroll down this page.

[04:38] Many Dante scholars want Dante to stare at the heavens, to pull his attention away from Judge Nino, to save our pilgrim-poet from the misogyny in the previous passage. But why?

[06:11] PURGATORIO VI - VIII involves the wheel of fortune for earthly leaders that eventually morphs into the wheeling stars of the heavens.

[09:30] The passing of morning and night is a crucial crux to understanding the human nature of PURGATORIO.

[13:06] The four cardinal virtues are setting and the three Christian virtues are riding--in the actual poem and in its allegory.

[16:21] The serpent in PURGATORIO brings Eve (and Eden) into the passage that had mentioned the Virgin Mary--although Dante is clearly a tad hesitant about this serpent (or its allegory?).

[19:24] The allegory of the snake in PURGATORIO, Canto VIII, may be connected to the setting of the infernal landscape and thus the setting of the classical "landscape" of Comedy.

[25:45] The beginnings of grace are not seen but its action (or motion) is.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto VIII, Lines 85 – 108

My hankering eyes kept looking up toward heaven,

Toward that spot in the sky where the stars turn the slowest,

Just as a wheel turns close to the axle.

 

My guide [said] to me, “Son, what are you gawking at up there?”

And I [replied] to him, “At those three little torches

Which fire up all of the pole down here.”

 

Then he [said] to me, “The four bright stars

That you saw this morning are now down low back there.

These have come up where the others were.”

 

As [Virgil] was speaking, Sordello pulled him close,

Saying, “Behold over there, our adversary!”

He pointed his finger where we should look.

 

In that part of the little valley

Without any embankment, there came a serpent,

Maybe even the one that gave Eve the bitter-tasting fruit.

 

The slithering evil [made its way] through the grass and flowers,

Swiveling its head from time to time to lick

Its back, like a beast that grooms itself.

 

I didn’t see and thus cannot say

Just how those celestial hawks started in motion,

But I could clearly see them both once they were in motion.

 

When it heard those green wings cut through the air,

The serpent fled. The angels both whirled around

And returned to their respective posts.