PURGATORIO, Episode 157. What The Pilgrim Can Do And What A Redeemer Must Do: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 1 - 15

Pope Adrian V has pushed the pilgrim Dante to move on . . . even though the pilgrim doesn't want to.

He and Virgil pick their way through the crowded fifth terrace of Purgatory. The avaricious are so many that the poet has to step out and offer a prophetic denunciation among the wreckage.

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

[01:32] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 1 - 15. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me in the comments to this episode, please scroll down this page.

[03:16] The advantange or problem with structure in PURGATORIO, Canto XX.

[07:30] The pilgrim's weak will redirected.

[09:57] The pilgrim's and Virgil's movement v. the immobile smelting of the penitents.

[13:17] The poet-prophet's curse.

[16:32] The poet-prophet's hope.

[22:14] Rereading this passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XX, lines 1 - 15.

My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XX, Lines 1 – 15

Against a better will, your own will doesn’t fight well.

Therefore, against my own pleasure but in favor of pleasing him,

I pulled my unsated sponge out of the water.

I moved on . . . and my guide moved on

Through the unoccupied gaps at the foot of the rock face,

As one who walks along a castle wall against the battlements,

Because those people were melting the evil that fills the whole world.

It came out of their eyes drop by drop.

They lay quite close together along the terrace’s outer edge.

A curse on you, ancient she-wolf,

That more than any other beast finds your victims

To feed your own utterly hollow hunger.

O heavens, whose turning, as we believe,

Alters the daily conditions down here,

When will the one come who will put her to rout?