PURGATORIO, Episode 188. Dante's Wild Claim For Love's Inspiration: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 34 - 54

After Forese Donati has pointed out five of the gluttons on the sixth terrace of Mount Purgatory, one of them, the first mentioned and a poet of the previous generation, keeps muttering something almost unintelligible under his breath.

Our pilgrim asks him for more information. This poet then offers the pilgrim an oblique prophecy that has troubled Dante scholars for hundreds of years. He also asks if this pilgrim is the same guy who wrote a poem in the VITA NUOVA.

Dante replies that he is indeed that poet . . . and goes on to claim that his poetry is inspired by love itself (which perhaps is a stand-in for God?).

Let’s take on the first half of the single most annotated passage in all of Dante's COMEDY. We are getting to the heart of what Dante thinks he's doing with his poetry . . . but what exactly that is remains something of a mystery, or at least a scholarly debate.

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

[02:00] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 34 - 54. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[05:08] The value of paying attention: the pilgrim to Bonagiunta and Bonagiunta to Dante's poetry.

[08:54] Bonagiunta's shifty murmurs of "gentucca."

[11:51] An opaque prophecy about Lucca from an older poet who should know how to be clear.

[17:13] Bonagiunta's refernce to a canzone (or long poetic song) from Dante's VITA NUOVA.

[20:37] The pilgrim's wild claims for direct inspiration from . . . love (or maybe God).

[27:02] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, lines 34 - 54.

And here’s my English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXIV, Lines 34 – 54

But as happens when we look and then pay attention to

One guy more than another, so I did with the one from Lucca

Who most seemed as if he wanted to get to know me.

He was murmuring and I heard something along the lines of

“Gentucca” from the spot where he felt the wound

That justice uses to pluck them bare.

I said, “O spirit, who seems to want very badly

To speak to me, please make me understand you

So that your speech can satisfy both you and me.”

He began, “A woman has been born and she’s not yet

Wearing a wimple. She will make my city

Pleasing to you, however people reproach it.

“You will leave this place with this future-seeing.

If you got pregnant with an error from my murmuring,

The true events will make it clear to you.

“But tell me if I see the one who

Pulled out those lines in the new rhyme, beginning with

Ladies who have the mind of love.”

And I [said] to him, “I myself am the one who, when

Love breathes in me, takes notice. And whatever mode

He dictates inside me, I go on with that sort of signifying.”