As Dante the pilgrim gazes at the gorgeous sky, he finds an old man standing next to him, a figure who will startle us (if not the pilgrim) and who will eventually cue us that all is not what it seems in the second third of Dante's COMEDY.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we turn with the pilgrim to PURGATORIO's first great surprise. Let's talk about this old man without identifying him yet--because that's exactly what our text does.

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

[01:18] My English translation of this passage: PURGATORIO, Canto I, Lines 28 - 48. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please scroll down this page.

[03:02] Our first task: The Big Dipper. It's a minor translation problem in the passage.

[04:35] The on-going movement from Dante the pilgrim: turning, not walking.

[06:52] The effects of wonder in this passage have already been noted in INFERNO, Canto XXVIII.

[08:00] Our first vision of the lone, old man, emerging at us from the text.

[08:58] The old man is not immediately identified--and that may be crucial to our seeing the poem correctly.

[12:18] The old man has a paternal quality. Does that make him a potential rival for Virgil?

[13:37] The old man has a long, forked beads, reminiscent of the representation of Moses in the Florentine Baptistry mosaics.

[14:58] The old man is first seen by Dante the pilgrim after he turns to the north.

[15:54] The old man is directly linked to the four stars over the South Pole.

[16:51] There is another old man ("veglio") in the poem: the old man of Crete.

[18:18] The old man's appearance is reminiscent of Jesus's appearance to Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb.

[19:35] The old man seems very keen on the legal niceties.

[21:37] The old man is a blocking figure, like many others we've met in INFERNO.

[22:30] But there's a significant difference: This old man may be open to change.

[23:57] Rereading PURGATORIO, Canto 1, Lines 28 - 48.

And here’s my English translation of

 

Purgatorio, Canto I, Lines 28 – 48

As I made my gaze turn away from those stars

And turned myself a bit toward the opposite pole,

Where the Big Dipper had already set,

I saw close by me a single, lone, old man.

His whole appearance deserved so much respect

That no son could have given his own father more.

He sported a long beard that was dappled with white,

Similar [in color] to what was on top of his head.

It all fell onto his chest in double strands.

The rays of light from those four blessed stars

Bestowed such an illumination on his face

That it looked to me as if he were basking in the sun.

“Who are you who’ve come up along the dark stream

To have then made your escape from the eternal prison?”

He said, shaking his honored locks.

“Who’d you have for a guide? And what’d you have for a lantern

That let you exit from the deep dark night

That always shrouds hell’s valley in blackness?

“Have the laws of the abyss been abrogated somehow?

Or has a new directive been issued in heaven

So that you, the damned, may now come to my seaside banks?”