PURGATORIO, Episode 205. The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name: PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 94 - 114

Guido Guinizzelli has named himself and our pilgrim, Dante, is aghast.

He gets lost in a classical simile that almost loses its sense, only to finally find his love for this poetic father and express himself in the straightfoward, new style from which his own poetry was born.

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The segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:22] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 94 - 114. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment to continue the conversation, scroll down this page.

[03:21] Guido Guinizzelli substituted a philosophical ideal for feudal love.

[07:06] A ridiculously complex simile in the midst of a discussion of the sweet new style.

[11:18] Dante finds a father, perhaps one of the goals of COMEDY.

[13:06] The pilgrim backs off from homoeroticism with feudal pledges.

[15:50] Guinizzelli gets Dante's footprint that even Lethe won't wash away.

[17:24] Poetry may ironically offer a hint of its immortality in its materiality.

[21:47] Rereading PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, lines 94 - 114.

My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXVI, Lines 94 – 114

As it went with those two sons when they once more saw

Their mother ensnared in Lycurgus’s fury,

So I became, admittedly without getting so high and mighty,

When I heard him name himself, he who had been a father

To me and many others, even my betters,

Who always employed love’s sweet and easy-going rhymes.

I went on without listening or speaking, thinking

About him for a long time as I stared in wonder at him.

However, I didn’t get any closer, because of the fire.

Once my gaze was sated with the feast,

I quickly offered myself up to his service

With the sort of affirmations that make the offer credible.

He [said] to me, “You make such a mark in me

Because of the things I hear—it’s altogether clear—

That Lethe can’t take it away or make it dimmer.

“But if your words are just now sworn truth,

Tell me what is the reason that you show

By your speech and your stare that you still cherish me.”

And I said to him, “Your sweet verses

Will make their ink still seem precious

As long as modern custom lasts.”