Our pilgrim has fallen asleep on the edge of the fourth terrace of Mount Purgatory. He's seen the racing slothful but night has gotten the better of him . . . so he begins to dream.

That dream is all about desire and the male gaze. It's also about poetic space and dream space . . . and the porous nature between the two.

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

[01:54] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 1 - 15. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation, please scroll down this page.

[04:21] Cooling planets, fortune tellers, and the liminal space before dawn.

[06:51] References to INFERNO XX and VII in this passage.

[10:20] Canto XIX and the psalms of ascent.

[12:46] Delaying tactics at the opening of Canto XIX.

[15:07] Disgust and the "redemption" of gaze.

[18:29] Disturbing gender politics.

[19:50] Who gets to observe vs. who (or what) is observed.

[21:59] The poetic space vs. the dream space (which are not really separate)

[25:17] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, lines 1 - 15.

And here’s my English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XIX, Lines 1 – 15

 In the hour when the warmth of the day can’t

Mitigate the moon’s chill—

Even defeated by earth and sometimes by Saturn—

When the geomancers see their Greater Fortune

In the east before the dawn,

Rising along a path that doesn’t stay dim for long,

A stammering woman came to me in a dream

With her eyes crossed and her feet deformed,

With foreshortened hands and a pallid color.

I beheld her—and as the sun gives comfort

To cold limbs which the night has made heavy,

So my gaze loosened her willing tongue.

Then in just a little while [my gaze]

Pulled her upright and gave her lost look

Just the sort of color that love desires.