PURGATORIO, Episode 166. The Place Beyond Accidental Change: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 40 - 57

The unknown shade on the fifth terrace of Mount Purgatory begins to answer Virgil’s questions by referring to Aristotelian notions of change . . . and then begins wrapping the imagery and poetry of Cantos XX and XXI back onto themselves for a gorgeous lyrical tapestry amid the classical learning.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 165. Virgil's Classical Schooling And Insistence: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 22 - 39

The unknown shades wants to know how two escapees from hell have made their way up Mount Purgatory. Virgil has to explain that the pilgrim Dante is still alive . . . and he does so with a knot of classical imagery before pressing on to the question of “why” the mountain just shook and all the souls shouted in one voice.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 164. A Shade Appears: PURGATORIO, Canto XXI, Lines 1 - 21

Dante the pilgrim is left wondering why Mount Purgatory has shaken so hard . . . and then he’s confronted by an even deeper mystery: a shade appears, seemingly out of nowhere, reminiscent of the appearances of Virgil and Cato earlier in COMEDY. It’s a wild start to one of the finest cantos in COMEDY.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 147. Greedy Beasts That Refuse The Lure: A Read-Through Of The Fifth Terrace Of PURGATORIO, Cantos XIX - XXI

The fifth terrace of Purgatory: a read-through of PURGATORIO, Cantos XIX, XX, and XXI. The terrace of the avaricious, which includes a late-to-repent pope, one of the founders of the French monarchy, and the Roman poet Statius who is so enamored with Virgil that he almost makes a grave mistake in the middle of Purgatory.

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