Our pilgrim has found himself in the dark of night, a spot where he loses all effort on Mount Purgatory.

But don't get too sleepy. You can get run over by the slothful, all at a full gallop in a Bacchic frenzy.

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

 

[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XVIII, lines 786 - 96. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[03:39] The complicated opening passage about the moon and the time of night.

[13:38] Virgil and the values of chivalry 

[16:41] Directionality and the penitents of Purgatory.

[20:32] The Bacchic penance of the slothful.

[23:12] The pilgrim's sleepy, poetic imagination.

And here’s my translation of Purgatorio, Canto XVIII, Lines 76 – 96

Delayed until near midnight, the moon

Looked like a copper bucket on fire,

And caused the stars around us to seem fewer in number.

 

It was running contrary to [the overall movement of] the heavens

Along those pathways which the sun sets on fire when someone from Rome

Sees [the sun] between the Sardinians and Corsicans.

 

And that noble shade, because of whom the very name of Pietola

Is more known than any other Mantuan village,

Had shrugged off the burden I had put on him—

 

Such that I had harvested from reason

An open and clear answer to my questions.

So I sat down as someone whose mind wanders aimlessly before sleep.

 

But this exhaustion was suddenly yanked away

From me by people who were

Coming around the bend directly at us from behind.

 

As Ismenus and Asopus saw fury

And trampling once in the night near them,

When the Thebans felt they needed Bacchus,

 

Just so around this circle [came] the people like a scythe on the path

(At least that’s how I saw them coming on).

They were driven forward by good will and just love.