Be Careful Of The Company You Keep: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 1 - 21

Walking With Dante

Sapía has finished her amazingly complex speech with the pilgrim Dante . . . or has she? At the opening of Canto XIV, we're not sure who is speaking? Still Sapía? No, two envious souls, leaning against each other, almost gossiping about our pilgrim. And nothing satisfies envy quite like gossip.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this new thing: the opening of a canto in COMEDY in which unnamed (and unknowable!) souls just starting talking out of the blue. Be on guard. They may not be all they seem at first blush.

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

[01:34] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 1 - 21. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation about this passage, please find this individual episode on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:31] Two penitent souls interrupt the action of PURGATORIO.

[06:00] The opening of canto XIV is a new thing in COMEDY, much as Sapía has identified Dante the pilgrim as a new thing in her world.

[08:19] There are two curious words in this opening dialogue: "our" and "sweetly."

[11:45] These two spirits are apparently quite intimate with each other. Will that intimacy pay off?

[12:50] One of the envious penitents divides Dante's soul from his body . . . and uses Dante's own words to address him.

[15:41] Dante is quite cagey when he answers their question, all the while putting his soul and body back together.

[20:16] Dante replies with one of his own favorite rhetorical techniques: periphrasis. Elsewhere in COMEDY, Dante is pretty forthcoming about his origins.

[22:53] Is Dante modest? Or cagey? Or "just" truthful?

[28:41] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 1 - 21.