As I told you in the previous episode of this podcast, we're taking PURGATORIO in chunks, rather than small bits. Or more like, first chunks, then small bits. And here's our first chunk: cantos 1 - 2 in my English translation.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we begin our exploration of the shores of Purgatory. I'll first read through the first two cantos of the middle canticle from Dante's masterwork, COMEDY.

Then I'll raise some initial interpretive questions--although there will be lots more as we break the cantos down into smaller chunks, starting in the next episode.

I’ve intentionally left the translation off this page to encourage you just to listen to it. My translation will appear in subsequent episodes, as it did for INFERNO.

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

[01:54] Reading PURGATORIO, cantos 1 - 2.

[18:26] Six initial, interpretive questions. One, are we in the same poem as we were in INFERNO?

[20:53] Two, who is this solitary old man?

[22:13] Three, why all the astrological and astronomical references in these cantos?

[23:28] Four, why all the singing in these opening cantos of PURGATORIO?

[24:43] Five, who is Casella?

[25:43] Six, what does Dante the poet know about angels?