Walking On Pride, Part One: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, Lines 25 - 36

Walking With Dante

Virgil has directed Dante the pilgrim to look down at the road bed. Dante sees figures carved into the terrace . . . and he begins to walk on pride, the way one might walk over tombs in the floor of a church.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the first four figures carved into road bed. Who are they? How is the passage crafted? And what can they tell us about the dualism of pride and humility?

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

[02:02] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 25 - 36. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website: markscarbrough.com.

[03:47] Who are these figures? Lucifer, Briareus, Apollo, Athena, Mars, Jupiter, and Nimrod.

[10:14] What are the rhetorical, thematic, and formal poetic structures used to describe this first set of four exemplars.

[14:45] One curiosity in the passage: Statius's THEBIAD may lie behind much of it.

[15:55] Another curiosity: One set of figures are NOT exemplars of pride.

[16:59] A final curiosity: Apollo's occluded presence in the passage.

[19:33] The first of three discussions on the difficulty of making humility a virtue.