PURGATORIO, Episode 168. The Audacity Of Statius: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 76 - 102

We finally get to know our unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Purgatory: Statius, the epic Roman poet.

His salvation is one of the most audacious moves in all of COMEDY. Dante has to work every fiction-making muscle he has to assert that this pagan poet has spend so long in Purgatory on his way to heaven . . . and finds himself face to face with Virgil, his poetic inspiration and apparently the carrier of God's revelation.

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

[01:52] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, lines 76 - 102. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[04:49] Introducing Publius Papinius Statius (45 - 96 CE), the author of THE THEBIAD and THE ACHILLEID . . . and a soul who should never be here in Purgatory.

[10:36] Virgil's continued insistence on the "why?"

[13:38] The lamentable if inevitable bloom of antisemitism in COMEDY.

[17:30] Statius, always without faith in the historical record but always vocalized in COMEDY.

[20:36] The shocking conjunction of THE AENEID and babytalk.

[24:06] A bit of heresy from Statius . . . unless the redeemed don't have to be perfect.

[27:19] Why Statius in Canto XXI of PURGATORIO?

[31:35] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, lines 76 - 102.

And here’s my English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 76 – 102

And my wise guide [said]: “Now I see the netting

That webs you all here and how you’re freed from it.

[I also understand] why the mountain is shaken and why you all whoop it up.

“Now may it please you to let me know who you were.

And let your words tell me why

You have lain here for all these centuries.”

“Back in the time when the good Titus, with the help

Of the supreme King, brought justice to the wounds

That let the blood that Judas sold come out,

“I carried the name that lasts the longest

and brings the most honor down there,” replied this spirit.

“I was very famous yet still without faith.

“So sweet was my vocalized spirit

That Rome dragged me away from Toulouse.

[In Rome] I got worthy enough for my temples to be decked with myrtle.

“People back there still say my name: Statius.

I sang of Thebes, then of the great Achilles,

Although I fell along the path with that second burden.

“The sparks of fire that set me ablaze

Came out of my passion—in fact, from the divine flame

That has ignited more than a thousand.

“I’m taking about The Aeneid. As I wrote poetry,

That was my momma and my nurse.

Without it, I couldn’t have crafted anything that weighed a pittance.

“And to have lived in that time when

Virgil was alive! I would consent to another solar year

More than I already owed for my release from this exile.”