Virgil and Dante leave behind the sheeplike souls that include Manfred to begin their hard climb up Mount Purgatory.

The initial ascent is rough on the pilgrim, climbing on his hands and knees, constantly out of breath. Why do we assume the bad is always easy and the good is always hard? And if the ascent is so hard, what's in it for Virgil?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore these moral quandaries and more in this passage about the first ascent in PURGATORIO.

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

[01:18] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 19 - 51. If you'd like to print it off, read along, or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[03:44] How do we know all the souls around Manfred are more of the excommunicated? May some of them be other stragglers? What assumptions does Dante force us to make? And why?

[06:44] Two misdirections in this passage: 1) the pastoral imagery after the scholastic mental gymnastics and 2) a long passage of plot after a passage in which the plot had come to a dead halt.

[09:40] Rustic imagery is some of the residue of the troubadour traditions Dante has inherited.

[12:06] The widening geographical references may indicate Dante's understanding of his widening readership.

[17:17] Virgil becomes Dante's cheerleader. But what's in it for Virgil?

[20:48] Why is the good always hard and the bad always easy?

[23:56] Desire is the key to the passage--and to the climb itself.

[26:47] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 19 - 51.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto IV, Lines 19 – 51

 Often, when grapes ripen, a guy from the village,

Thrusting a forkful of thorns into a hedge,

Might well plug a larger hole

 

Than my leader now climbed through—

With me right behind him, both of us now alone,

Once that regiment [of souls] had departed.

 

You can go all the way up San Leo and come down to Noli,

You can even summit Bismàntova and even Cacùme

On foot—but here, it seems as if a guy’s gotta fly.

 

I mean to say, on swift wings and plumes

Of great desire, as I did behind my hiking guide

Who gave me great hope and lit the way for me.

 

We climbed inside a cleft in the rock

That squeezed close on either side of us.

The ground underneath us required both our feet and hands.

 

When we got up to the fissure’s uppermost ledge

And came out into the open air again,

I said, “My master, which way should we go?”

 

And he [Virgil] to me: “Don’t even fall back one step!

Just keep going up this mountain behind me

Until someone who knows the way appears before us.”

 

The summit was so tall that it wasn’t even visible.

The gradient was steeper than a line marked

From a circle’s mid-quadrant to its center.

 

I was worn out when I set in [to say]:

“O sweet father, turn back and notice

How I’ll be left all alone, if you don’t wait up.”

 

“My son,” he said, “hoist yourself up there.
He pointed to the ledge a little higher up

That went on to make a circle all around the slope.

 

His words were my goad—

So much so that I pushed myself to climb all the way up

Until that ledge was firmly under foot.