PURGATORIO, Episode 77. Realism And Its Discontents: PURGATORIO, Canto X, Lines 46 - 69

After the intaglio about the annunciation, Dante moves beyond Virgil (or is prodded to move beyond his guide) to discover a second sequence, this time from the story of King David and his journey with the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem.

The scene is so realistic that it causes a sensory confusion in our pilgrim. Problem is, his amazement at the realism in the art is based on the poet's fabrication of details in the scene. The imagined enhances the real? A complex game indeed!

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look with the pilgrim at the second carving on the terrace of the prideful in PURGATORIO.

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

[01:13] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 46 - 69. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please scroll down this page.

[04:00] Comparing the first image in the marble with this second one: spare vs. elaborate.

[04:54] Dante, on the side of Virgil's heart, eventually passes his guide. Is this symbolic? Allegorical? Or ironic?

[09:51] The relief in the marble is a story lifted from II Samuel 6: 1 - 23.

[12:19] The last six lines of the passage seem to show a dichotomy between low comedy and high tragedy.

[14:26] Complex ironies in the passage: Dante makes up details that are the basis of its hyper-realism.

[17:23] More complex ironies in the passage: Dante the poet may appear in disguise twice in the pilgrim's story.

[21:01] The call for greater realism leads to, yes, Renaissance art but also to modern abstraction.

[23:48] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 46 - 69.

And here’s my English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto X, lines 46 - 69:

“Don’t fix your attention on only one spot,”

My kind master said. He’d set me

On the side of him where people have their hearts.

Beyond Mary and on the same side

Where he had motioned for me to look,

I turned my face and saw

The relief of another story in the rock.

I walked on past Virgil and got up close

So that my eyes might inspect it more fully.

There, carved in the marble, were

The wagon and oxen which drew the sacred ark.

It makes anyone timid to do a task not already assigned.

In the foreground, there appeared to be a crowd—in fact, a mass of people,

Divided into seven choirs. They were so lifelike they made my senses say to each other,

‘No,’ and then ‘Yes, they are singing!’

In like manner, the smoke of the incense was so well imagined

That it put my eyes and nose

In discord—you know, between ‘no’ and ‘yes.’

There, just in front of the blessed vessel,

The humble psalmist leaped up, his robes flying around him.

He looked both more and less like a king at that moment.

Across from him, framed in the window

Of a splendid palace, Michal glared at him,

Like a woman who was both contemptuous and sad.