PURGATORIO, Episode 90. Walking On Pride, Part Two: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 37 - 48

We're still walking on top of the reliefs of the prideful in the road bed of the first terrace of Mount Purgatory after the gate: the terrace of pride. Here, Dante the pilgrim sees four more figures: two from the classical age and two from the Biblical age. And the classical figures seem distinctly connected to art.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore another short passage on the reliefs in the road bed of the terrace of pride.

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

[01:31] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 37 - 48. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[02:39] The figures in the road bed in this passage: Niobe, Saul, Arachne, and Reheboam.

[10:06] The craft of this passage: Ovid's Metamorphosis v. the Bible; poetry and art v. politics and revolt.

[13:00] One curiosity in the passage: suicides.

[15:43] The second of three discussions on the difficulty of making humility a virtue.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto XII, Lines 37 – 48

Oh, Niobe, with your sad eyes,

I saw you carved into relief in the road bed

And set among your dead, seven sons and seven daughters.

Oh, Saul, what you looked like! You were

Thrown onto your own sword and dead at Gilboa,

Which never after had any rain or dew.

Oh, crazy Arachne, I saw you

Morphing into a spider, pathetic, wound up in your own strands,

The very work that brought you so much woe.

Oh, Reheboam, the image of you doesn’t seem to be terrible

But rather to cower, for a chariot carries

The thing off without anyone’s giving it chase.