PURGATORIO, Episode 41. In A Rush For Peace: PURGATORIO, Canto V, Lines 37 - 63

The pilgrim Dante and his guide, Virgil, have passed beyond the lazy souls and on to a group that's in a frenzy: running, calling out, speaking in one voice. The change is marked and important to understand how PURGATORIO works.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage from the fifth canto of PURGATORIO. These souls have died violent deaths. And they want something from the pilgrim Dante. He wants something, too. And his wants are somehow tied with Virgil.

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

[02:16] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto V, lines 37 - 63. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment about this episode, please scroll down this page.

[04:33] A concise but double simile, so compact it's a little garbled in the medieval Florentine--and perhaps comes from Virgil's GEORGICS (Book I, lines 365 - 367).

[08:27] Virgil doesn't seem to fully know what these frenzied souls want from the pilgrim Dante. If Virgil doesn't understand Christian theology, what then is his purpose in PURGATORIO?

[13:17] The souls speak in one voice (to Dante the pilgrim, NOT to Virgil!). The narrative movement of PURGATORIO is monophony (or unison) to polyphony.

[16:27] The souls want a transactional relationship with Dante the pilgrim. And maybe with Dante the poet, too.

[18:32] Dante seems to clarify the initial metaphor's implications.

[20:38] Two fundamental keys to PURGATORIO's thematics in this passage.

[25:30] Five interpretive problems in this passage.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto V, Lines 37 – 63

I’ve never seen falling stars

Cut through a clear sky in the early hours of the night,

Nor the setting sun cut through the August haze,

As quickly as those guys whipped around and went back.

The moment they got there, the whole cavalry turned

And charged us in an unreined frenzy.

“The number of people pressing us is huge

And they’re here to beg from you,” the poet [Virgil] said.

“But just keep walking and listen as you go along.”

“O soul who goes to your happiness

With the very limbs you had at your birth,”

They called out as they came up, “hold up for just a bit.

“Take a good look. Maybe you’ve ever seen some of us.

If so, you can take news of him back over there.

Hey, why do you keep going? Hey, why don’t you stop?

“All of us were felled at different times by a violent death.

We were sinners up to our last hour.

That’s when the light from heaven made us aware of our condition,

“So that, repenting and forgiving, we left

Our lives reconciled with God,

Who then saddens us with the desire to see him.”

And I [said]: “Even though I stare at your faces,

I don’t recognize any of them. But if there’s any way I can

Do you a favor, well-born spirits,

“Tell me about it and I’ll make it happen because of this peace

That makes me pursue it from world to world,

Following in the footsteps of this guide.”