Having heard three stories of those who died violent deaths unshriven, Dante the pilgrim is besieged by requests from others. A crowd forms around him, all begging for prayer, including six individuals singled out from the crowd.

But something's amiss. Someone has won at a game of dice--and someone has lost. Who's the winner and who's the loser?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this finale episode to those who died violent deaths yet are among the souls slowly (!) ascending to heaven.

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

[01:26] My English translation of this passage: PURGATORIO, Canto VI, lines 1 - 24. If you'd like to read along or print it off to make notes, please scroll down this page.

[04:09] PURGATORIO, Canto VI as a whole: an introduction to its structure.

[06:19] The six souls who accost the pilgrim Dante: three named and three unnamed (or, better, named periphrastically).

[15:49] Why does Dante the poet feel the need to obscure three of these pressing souls?

[19:08] An Arabic game of dice opens Canto VI--and may be a meta-statement about COMEDY as a whole.

[24:18] Who is the winner of this game? Dante the pilgrim, of course. But who is the loser? Probably Virgil!

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto VI, Lines 1 – 24

When a game of dice is finished,

The one who lost is left behind, all miserable,

Repeating every turn of the game and getting schooled by his sorrow.

 

Meanwhile, the others set off with the guy who won—

This guy goes in front, another grabs him from behind,

And yet another beside him tries to get his attention.

 

The winner doesn’t stop. He does listen to this one and that.

Those to whom he extends his hand don’t press so close anymore

So he has some defense against the crowd.

 

That’s how I was in that pressing throng:

Turning my face first to this one, then to another,

All to make my promises and thus be free of them.

 

Among them was the Arentine who met his death

At the hands of the fierce Ghino di Tacco,

And the other who drowned as he raced away from the chase.

 

And with his hands stretched out in a plea was

Frederico Novello, as well as the guy from Pisa

Who made the good Marzucco appear quite strong.

 

I saw Count Orso, as well as that soul divided

From his body because of spite and envy,

As he said, and not because of any crime he’d committed—

 

I mean, Pierre de la Brosse. And I pray she takes care,

That Lady of Brabant, while she’s still over there [among the living],

So that she doesn’t find herself in a much worse flock.