PURGATORIO, Episode 23. Virgil, The Failure . . . Maybe: PURGATORIO, Canto III, Lines 1 - 9

Cato has given his stern reprimand and everyone has scattered for Mount Purgatory. Even Virgil. He's on the run, ashamed.

But why should Virgil be ashamed? What's he done? And what would it matter if he did do something wrong?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through these complicated questions that COMEDY never fully answers. Dante the poet, instead, offers us emotional compensations for the logical flaws in his plot. Are those compensations enough?

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

[01:37] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto III, lines 1 - 9. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment, please scroll down this page.

[03:02] The fiction and strategy of COMEDY is to pretend the poem has neither.

[07:11] The divisions between the cantos in PURGATORIO become more permeable--and in some interesting ways both mute and foreground the pilgrim, Dante.

[10:12] The pilgrim Dante's place in COMEDY is changing.

[11:42] Why is Virgil so upset? How did he fail? What does it matter if he failed?

[14:43] Dante the poet "fixes" the problem of Virgil's shame with a plea for compassion. Is that a true "fix"?

My English translation of Purgatorio, Canto III, Lines 1 – 9

Despite the fact that that crowd’s instantaneous flight

Had scattered them across the plain,

Turning them toward the mountain where justice probes us,

I [by contrast] pulled up close to my trusty companion.

How could I have run on without him?

Who would have guided my way up the mountain?

He seemed as if he were torn up with self-loathing.

O pure conscience, and a noble one, too,

How the sting of a little failure is so bitter for you!